A Taste of the Wild After the Hike

Today, I saw something in person that you do not always see, or get the opportunity to see in person.

            It was at a park, and it was such a beautiful day, that I had decided to go for a hike. Afterwards, I just wanted to soak up the sun, and enjoy the extraordinary weather. It really was just a stunningly beautiful, autumn day, with the leaves on the trees alight and blazing with autumn colors and beauty.

            There is a pond, and I had taken a book to read, trying to enjoy the day. It seemed like such a slow-paced day. Perhaps a lazy Saturday afternoon, if you will. Everyone was just taking it easy there.

            Eventually, there came a point when it seemed like I should start to get going. So, rather reluctantly, I got up and started heading towards the car.

            But I couldn’t pull myself away just yet. I switched shoes, from my hiking shoes (actually, I’ve been wearing sneakers, which perhaps are seen as a no-no for many orthodox hikers, but which have served me just fine), and put my sandals on instead, to let my feet breathe, if you will. This was surely one of the last days where I can get away with wearing sandals. After all, November is less than two weeks away.

            In any case, I leaned against the car, taking in the warm sun, and reading my book for a few minutes. Other cars came and went, people talking in the lots, or switching shoes, like me. Going about their normal business.

            There was another car that pulled up, a few spaces away from me. There were other cars in the way, so if I had been looking (I wasn’t), I most likely would not have seen what was coming anyway.

            The driver got out of the car and went to the rear passenger door, and opened it to let his dog (it looked like a golden retriever, although I really did not get a good look, or perhaps simply was not paying attention to that particular detail of it).  They were the only two in the car, and nobody else was around. I was not really paying attention to them.

            That changed. The driver began to yell, and ran after the dog. I heard nothing, than I heard the guy really yelling, while trying to sprint to where the dog had raced to. I heard some snarling – no barking – from some distance, and initially just assumed that his dog had found another dog, and they were in the middle of a fight. Judging by the snarling, it sounded like a serious one.

            But it was not a dog fight. When the guy chased his dog, the dog kept on running away, and at some point, he came into my view.

            He was holding something in his mouth. A little creature, it might have been a rabbit, but looked like it might have been a beaver or woodchuck. I simply could not really tell what it was, because the dog was holding it in it’s mouth, and violently throwing the thing around. When he paused for a second or two, the thing in it’s mouth was not moving, and it’s limbs were dangling loosely. Either it was playing dead, or it was not playing dead at all, because it was dead, or almost dead.

            The guy came around, but once again, the dog ran away. This kept going on for a few more moments.

            After a while, he must have gotten to his dog, and separated the dog and the other creature.

            He put the dog back in the backseat of the car, and then went for a closer examination of the thing the dog had killed. I took a look after a minute or so, and the guy was trying to pick the thing up with a couple of sticks, and moved it to some nearby bushes. There were predators, presumably either hawks or turkey vultures, that were circling in the air above already. With the bright sun, I almost felt like it was a scene right out of a Western.

            This was no Western, or anything. No movie, and no documentary. This was real life.

            The guy had been angry that his dog had acted in such a way. But really, that is how nature works. The dog was not doing anything bad, he was doing what is in his nature. Acting perfectly normal, really. What could the guy have done, anyway? Maybe keep the dog on the leash in the car, or put the leash on while in the car, and then grab onto the leash immediately upon opening the door, or something like that.

            It reminded me of some nature clips that I saw some months ago, and seeing a pride of lions take down a full grown elephant. There was also another clip of a pride of lions taking a baby elephant, after managing to scare it away from the parents. In both cases, it was nighttime, when elephants cannot see too well, and this gives the lions some major advantages.

             Maybe I was just being sensitive, but those clips of the lions taking down elephants was shocking to me. I had heard at some point in my childhood that lions and elephants kind of give each other some respectful distance, knowing the power and potential damage the other can do. However, these lions, which usually would not have attacked elephants under normal conditions, but were starving after a long drought, did what they had to do. It's survival. The wild is not always pretty, but the fact of the matter is, that this is the way that the world works. 

             Still, it was sad to see the clip of the mother elephant of that baby elephant standing over the carcass of her lost one. It was also sad today to see the lifeless body of an animal that, moments before, had been full of life and energy, and which probably had been feeding on grass, or doing some such thing, on one of the last truly accommodating days weather-wise that we may get before the cold really takes hold. I could understand the guy's frustration and, perhaps, sadness. It is a grim reality that the dog would do that, and I hope he did not feel anger towards the dog. That is the way things work, simply put. You can feel sadness for the creature that was killed, but there is a little bit of awe in seeing something like that in person. It just seemed so....sudden.

          I had come to the park expecting to take in the air and the sun, get a decent hike in, and maybe do a little reading. Perhaps I got a bit more than I bargained for, yet I cannot deny that it was a source of fascination to see such a thing in action. There was a bit of grim reality that snapped me fully awake from my books, at least for one moment.