Today's walk was just so strange, thought it was worth at least a quick blogging.
I went up the hill with a pedometer, Rudee, the sticks, cell phone, and my tunes. Just a regular day... Well, the pedometer was new, but still, I didn't expect anything but a somewhat more accurate report on my walking. So, I am trotting along, when Rudee gets all 'focussed'. He does this when he sees a deer, or a squirrel, or hears something, but knows he's not to leave me. I didn't see a deer, and so I looked. He started whining. I looked around, and became a little confused.
"Ok, go get 'em."
I figured, that way I could at least SEE what he was up in arms about. He bolted! ZOOOOOOM! Right across the top of the hill to the fence. I then realized I was hearing something, and turned off the music. Howling, screeching noises, crashing, and more howling. My first thought was coyotes (really, really common around here). My second thought was, geez, that is a LOT of noise.
I waited, and then thought, ya know, our neighbor... Is she okay? This got me on my cell phone to call Husband to ask if he'd call her. She's elderly, and everyone has been a bit more 'on edge' with the cougar and whatnot. I told Husband that it sounded like something was being attacked up where I was. I was walking to where Rudee was, who was trying his level best to stick his head through the fence. That's when I saw the outline.
"Husband! There's a BEAGLE up here! There's TWO beagles up here! There's THREE beagles up here!" (And so, if needed we now know who can take The Count's spot on Sesame Street, if he needs a break.) So, hung up with Husband, and kept an eye on Rudee, and the general fracas. I was expecting a person sooner or later. Finally, the beagles decided Rudee was fun, but they were on the track of something, and blasted down the hill, making a hard left to the neighbor's place.
Husband called back, it turns out, neighbor had seen a bobcat run by her house, and the directions I'd given to Husband, told him that they were probably tracking it. The neighbor thanked us for calling, and said that NO, there was no permission given to hunt on her place. She was calling the Sheriff.
Never saw the owner of the beagles. We saw the patrol go by a little later, I don't know what happened, I might try and find out later. I know we have had several folks complain about shooting, and comment on getting a Neighborhood Watch. I think I better get more motivated to get that going...
Oh, and I walked 1.015 miles, according to the pedometer. Wonder if beagle barks affect accuracy?
6 comments:
Aah, do they hunt bobcat there, as like "let's got hunt bobcat today" or do they just let the dogs go and see what they rustle up? I am very dumb about these things, never having done that with dogs.
Rudee did come back with you, right?
That's a bit of excitement for the day!
That sounds really exciting. Too bad you didn't see the bobcat - although I'm not sure I'd want to see the action if the beagles got too close to it.
Congrats on the 1.015 miles. I used to track my steps - maybe I should dig out my pedometer. I counted steps rather than miles. It sounds like more that way . Also, you didn't have to calibrate it for the length of your step. Lazy me! What I hated is that invariably when I went to the bathroom the darn thing would flip off my pants and the jolt on the floor would mess up my step count - sometimes setting it back to zero. A friend said it is more accurate to put it on the laces of your shoe, over your toes. Then I couldn't decide if I should double the steps or not... and was lazy again, didn't want to test it out!
Yes, get a neighborhood watch going.
My Sweetie's boss has a place out in the country, and has cameras set up, motion activated, to see if there are deer around before they bother going out. Turns out a neighbor, who has been in trouble before, was illegally running dogs on the property. Boss turned the pic over to the Sheriff, and told him to give the guy one warning, with the understanding that the next time charges would be pressed.
These people will keep coming back if they aren't given a good reason to stop.
Don't know about beagle barking and pedometer accuracy.
Around here, dogs are usually put on a particular thing, but well, I honestly haven't hunted, dogs or no, so I don't know for sure how they go about it. (I like to fish, myself.)
And yes, Rudee came back once I called him...
And the beagles just went into hyperdrive...
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Dreaming:
What I have seen of beagles, they tend to 'tree' animals. I don't know what would happen if they would get a track of a deer, or something that doesn't climb trees, but most of the dogs that friends and neighbors have had chase stuff that goes UP, so the person hunting has it treed.
As for the pedometer, it may or may not be that accurate, and I have a slight "hitch" when I walk, so I think the milage one is as good as any... And not the pedometer, but have had my cell phone dump out of pocket during potty breaks, and change ring tones. This is really interesting, when you have it on loud ring, and then miss a call because it switched to silent, or vibrate, or some other not loud thing... Grrr.
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messymimi:
Yes, it is just the thing of DOing it... I guess. And the neighbors around here, thank goodness, are pretty decent. It usually turns out to be someone not from here that is hunting or some such that causes the problems. (And I really would like to get myself one of those kind of cameras sometime, as much animally stuff as we have around here!)
As far as the barking, I was beginning to wonder if the high frequency was going to reset it or something! :D
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