PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Blog number 356 **** 23 December 2009

On the way to Phoenix the other day, we saw what I at first thought was a dog, but as we went by and I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw the unmistakable outline of a coyote. What threw me at first was the coloring. It was brown and on its back was a dark spot. I always figured coyotes were tan in color. This thing was also very healthy and I have come to view coyotes as rather mangy critters. I think I got that idea imprinted from watching road-runner cartoons. So far, every coyote I have seen since moving here (3) have been well fed and healthy. One wonders why they are so well fed, since there is not much for them to eat in the desert here, but there are a lot of little dogs and cats in the suburbs, and one hears every so often on the news about a coyote jumping over a wall and grabbing a pet - even when a human is in the back yard. In fact, one woman got into a tussle with a coyote over her dog. She won.

The behavior was definitely not that of a dog on a freeway. A dog would have been searching for his master - or any master, being rather fickle creatures, running up and down the road and even into traffic trying to stop a car and climb in. This coyote sniffed at something by the side of the road , paying no attention at all to all the cars zooming by. It was doing its research not more than three feet from autos traveling 70, 75 miles an hour past it. It completely ignored all traffic. As I watched in the rear view mirror, not once did it look up away from what it was investigating on the road.

Beautiful creatures!