Except just as he did that, a mountain lion bolted from cover about twenty feet away. She was not a large lion, in fact quite young, and she was not attacking -- I imagine something startled her, perhaps the sight of a man and a dog in the meadow. She bolted from a sparse grove of aspens and headed at top speed across the open meadow, heading for the thicker brush ahead.
And Maya took off. I imagine she must have been in heaven. There is chasing cats, and then there is chasing CATS. Neither of which is an activity we normally permit. So she sprinted off after the lion, and apparently, by the time they both vanished into the undergrowth, she was a mere couple of feet behind. Our dog is fast.
My breezy tone reflects the fact that I did not have to undergo this ordeal. I heard about it after both man and dog were safely home, not a scratch on either, and merely completely exhausted. I was not the one who spend nearly forty-five minutes frantically searching through the woods, afraid that my dog had been disemboweled by a mountain lion.
Eventually, Brian headed back to the car, where he found Maya happily lying beside the back tire. I guess that after her fabulous chase, she decided to head back and then just wondered what was taking Brian so long. No sign of the lion, not so much as a whisker out of place on Maya. Probably, the lion went up a tree, and Maya got worried about being separated from her running buddy.
In all the time we've lived in the west, we've seen three lions. One in California, one in northern New Mexico, and now, one in our favorite hiking spot. It isn't a complete surprise -- we see tracks and scat, and know that a variety of wildlife shares our mountains -- but it is surprising when you suddenly encounter one.
Taking responsibility for Maya makes us feel sometimes like we need to control everything in her life. It makes us feel like we ought to be able to prevent all accidents and unforeseen events, or that when they happen, they are the result of some oversight on our part. Especially because we are working so hard to reduce her reactivity, and succeeding depends on an excessive amount of management and foresight. So our immediate response is to review our leashing habits, and try to work out whether there's a good way to lion-proof a recall, and things like that.
Mostly, however, I am just be grateful for a happy ending. I'm glad both runners are back home, and I hope the young lion was not too badly traumatized. Ideally it learned some kind of valuable lesson about staying away from dogs. I am pretty certain that Maya learned nothing at all, other than a reaffirmation of her belief that chasing things is marvelous fun.
I do wonder what her version of the story would be.
Maya and her running boy.
Ack! OMG Maya, way to give your folks a heart attack! I'm so glad that she and her boy made it home safe!
ReplyDeleteShe's earned like a million cool dog points. Not only did she chase a mountain lion, but then she went back and hung out by the car until the human got with the program. My dogs would be so jealous and impressed!