Red In Tooth & Claw

Last couple of days, the dogs and I have skipped our morning walks. It sucks, but I’m worried for our safety, and with reason. The other morning, as I cleaned and refilled the bird bath, I failed to notice a pack of javelina watching me from the driveway. I only saw them when I turned around to roll up the garden hose. They were less than ten feet away, staring intently. I froze. They froze. I slowly backed toward the front door and went back inside. This was about the time I normally walk the dogs, between 6:30 and 7 a.m., before the pavement gets hot. I called off the walk, assuming the javelina were still lurking nearby.

The next morning I refilled our bird feeders, sprinkling an extra handful of seed on the ground for the pigeons and quail. Within minutes, the same group of javelina emerged from the brush and began eating the seed under the feeders. They must have been watching me; once again I hadn’t noticed them. Donna and I had a good view of them from the safety of the house, and I was able to take some photos.

This particular group is a family: one male, two females, two babies. In the first photo, the females and babies are under the bird feeders; the male was gone by the time I grabbed the camera, but I went out back to look over the fence and there he is in the second photo, standing guard.

There are plenty of javelina in the neighborhood, but apparently this family is ours, at least for now: we think they’re bedding down in the shiggy between the house and the highway. Javelina are most active at night, but as I now know, are still up and about well into the morning — I took those photos at 8 a.m.

Javelina are aggressive, especially when they have babies to protect, and they don’t like dogs. They say they think dogs are coyotes, natural enemies. Javelina have sharp tusks and use them in fights. They’re notorious for chasing and attacking dog walkers — they’re after the dogs, not the people walking them — but when people intervene to protect their pets they wind up getting gored too. Local news and neighborhood watch chat groups are full of javelina attack stories. Cute little piggies they’re not.

Our dogs bark and lunge at other dogs when I walk them, and I fear they won’t have the sense stay still and quiet if they see or smell javelina (and hoo boy do they smell). Knowing these guys are on our lot somewhere, watching us, hard to spot in the brush, still awake and alert during prime dog-walking time, well — we’ll rethink those morning walks. For a while, anyway.

I should mention other doggie threats. At least one pack of coyotes patrol our neighborhood and we often see them; as with the javelina, mostly in the morning before it gets hot. They’ll jump fences to snatch cats and small dogs from yards and patios, and every now and then you hear about them stalking dog-walkers. Unless its rabies or something you hardly ever hear about people being attacked, though. I haven’t heard of bobcats snatching pets from yards, but they’re certainly capable of it, and there are at least two living in our subdivision. Hawks and owls go after small dogs, and one of ours, Maxie (RIP), survived a hawk attack and had the scars on her rump to prove it. So far (knocking on wood here) we haven’t lost any of our pups to natural predators. The swimming pool is another story, but we have it fenced now and sleep easier knowing the dogs won’t fall into it when they go out to pee in the dark.

Add poison toads and rattlesnakes, and it’s a wonder any pets survive in southern Arizona. Happily, despite all the horror stories, most of them do.