Runner vs. Coyote

I’ve written before about my run ins with dogs and such on my runs.  In fact, it almost happened again this morning.  A man was walking his dog without a leash.  He didn’t see me, so I made some loud coughing noises to get his attention.  When he heard me, he ran over to his dog to grab the collar.  It’s disappointing how much I have to use that trick.

Anyway, after that I got back to my neighborhood and there was a beautiful coyote that was also going on a jogabout.  Unfortunately, when most people here come across coyotes or bobcats, they bust out their phones to take photos for Instabook.  This is wrong as it teaches them not to be scurred of humans.  Ya heard?

Stolen from a friend. He took this near his place here in Dallas recently.

What I was told to do by an urban wildlife expert is “haze” them.  This doesn’t mean you strip them to their undies and make them drink a bunch of beer at the frat house kegger. What it means is you try to scare the animal with loud noises and motions.

Stolen from another friend here in Dallas who saw these guys in his yard.

The coyote was about 30 yards away and it seemed like it wanted nothing to do with me, and would’ve jogged off on it’s own, but I decided to take this chance to teach him a little sumthin sumthin.  I turned towards him and chased after him while yelling very loudly with a deep voice and flailing my arms about.

This accomplished a couple things.  1.)  My neighbors surely now have confirmed their suspicions that I belong in a tree…because I’m a nut.  and 2.)  It spooked the coyote something fierce, and it took off sprinting without looking back!!!

So there ya go.

What about you?  What do you do when you encounter wildlife – take a selfie?  Do you ever cough or give some other warn people you’re coming up (when you’re too far away to say “on your left”)?