Posted today is an update on the survivor, Marshal Dillon, who single pawedly fought a coyote and lived to gloat about it. This morning, 24 hours later, Marshal seemed more confident than he should be after a coyote attack and a trip to the vet for stitches. During his tour of the back yard this morning, he discovered a pack of javelina strolling outside the yard fence. Marshal fiercely barked and growled in an attempt to intimidate the wild peccary. Once satisfied, he strutted to the side yard to look in the direction of the attack, or maybe he refers to the incident as the “fight”.
Pictured below, he is seemingly looking for the coyote as he sniffs the breeze blowing in his face and across his stitched wounds. He is intently scanning the property through the fence in the direction of the battleground. He is not afraid. He seems to be checking to see that no coyotes are invading his territory. I think he thinks he beat the coyote.
The vet said that many of the dogs attacked have wounds on their backsides. Marshal was facing the coyote in the attack. He was pinned at one point, but got up and fought the coyote face to face.
This is what it takes to SurviveAZ. May he never prove he can survive a second coyote attack. I will be more cautious about letting him roam outside the yard without close supervision, especially since he seems to have developed an invincibility complex after yesterday.
 |
| Guarding His Territory |
Marshal and I toured the property today. I found the answer to why the coyotes seem to have been more active on our property recently. We had heard a pack of them howling on the other side of the barn two days before Marshal's attack.
ReplyDeleteMarshal found the piece of javelina hide with hair on it first. We searched further and found a portion of a vertebrae section with ribs. Further up the hill was the scull with the lower jaw a ways away. This is all we found of a javelina that either had died on its own, or was weak and coyotes killed it.
There were several drag marks where pieces seem to have been drug off toward bushes. I wonder if each coyote would drag his portion of the carcass to a bush, using the bush as a protective shield from other coyotes.
It is interesting to see how little is left of a the javelina.