Tales of the Kitchen Coyote

We often call Allie our "Kitchen Coyote". It's not really because she looks much like a coyote (anyone who has seen coyotes in the wild knows this), but more because of the way she moves.

Yellowstone Coyote

Allie

She has the undulating lope, kind of sideways and crooked, that makes you thing "wild creature". She has been mistaken for a coyote several times, however.

Once we were on a camping trip in Zions National Park and a group of tourists got off of the tram when Allie and I were walking by. We were quickly surrounding by the tourists who were snapping pictures and pointing at Allie. The only word I understood was "coyote!". I guess that these folks must have thought that here in the wild, wild west we put pink bandanas on our wildlife and walked them on a leash.

The dogs and I were out for an evening walk the other night and, because it was dark, I was ignoring the city's leash laws and the dogs were running ahead of me. Allie sprinted ahead (as she always does), and sat at the corner waiting for permission to cross the street. I could hear voices and picked up my pace, so that I could get to the corner before the people got there. Usually, at this time of night, the only other people we meet are other folks stealth-walking their own dogs, but I guess these folks were returning from a late evening meal at the local French restaurant. As the people approached I heard them say "Look! There's a stray neighborhood coyote!" I quickly apologized for the dogs being off-lead and they laughed and said that they were hoping that Allie really wasn't a coyote, but that she sure looked like one. (Allie did present her paw at that point to shake hands, so fortunately that dispelled the coyote question.)

We do like to walk at night (for the afore-mentioned reason that we can stealth-walk the dogs off-leash) and last night my son and I took the dogs for a nice evening stroll. We had just reached the corner of the neighborhood park and there was a sudden explosion of colorful fireworks in the sky and Allie went into terror escape mode. Allie is severely noise phobic and fireworks send her over the edge with fear. On the 4th of July we have to give her valium and she sleeps curled behind the commode in the bathroom.

We always avoid taking her out when there is any chance for fireworks because she is absolutely terrified of the noise. These were probably leftover fireworks from New Years Eve (and illegal ones, too). We couldn't get to Allie with the leash quickly enough and she frantically sought to escape the horrible noise by quickly jumping into the front seat of a car in a nearby driveway that had unfortunately just opened the door. (Oops!) Imagine the look of surprise on the face of the woman sitting in the front seat with 30 lbs. of quivering Border Collie on her lap.

I was babbling apologies to the couple and trying, without much success, to releash Allie and get her to leave the safety of car. She kept wrapping her forelegs around the woman's neck and burying her face. It seemed like eternity, but it was probably only a second or two, before Allie responded to her recall and jumped off of the woman's lap. Once the shock wore off, the woman in the car started to laugh, got out and gave Allie a big hug and said what a "sweet little coyote" she was. I was mortified and kept apologizing profusely. Fortunately for us, the couple liked dogs and thought the whole thing was very amusing. They said they'd never had a "coyote" jump in their car before and wanted to take a picture of Allie and give her a dog treat.

It was a big embarassment, but we did finish the walk. However, we finished it with both dogs on lead.

Does this look like a coyote to you?