Coyotes and bears and whining, oh my!

Have you ever wondered what you might do in a situation that you have imagined a multitude of times but have yet to encounter? Well, I found out and I'm not proud of myself.

The evening began in a fairly uneventful fashion with an omelet dinner for us and a chicken, egg, and kibble dinner for Banjo. Unfortunately, something about that combination did not agree with our poor canine friend but it would be 4:45 am before he divulged the full details. I decided to bed down at about midnight and as I left the living room, Banjo began dancing at the front door. As much as he loves walking (or woahing as we call it), this type of behaviour is unlike him, so I figured that he must have to use his bathroom and since the world is his bathroom, we went out to it for a 4 corners. We live at an intersection, and a 4 corners is where he gets to pee on every corner before bed.

So here is where I got to learn what I'm made of. I have been dreaming, imagining, envisioning, and contemplating what I will do if and when I run into a bear. You see, this is bear country and I am mildly obsessed with them. I see their poo, I see their tracks, I think I even smelled one once, but I have never seen one outside the glassed-in safety of my car. It snowed here on Sunday, so most of the bears have begun their winter hibernation... or so I thought. Banjo was snuffling away in the snow and I was waiting for him to complete his circuit of snuffling away in the snow when what did I see, but a large black bear crossing the street on the other side of the intersection. And what did I do? I ran. Can you imagine? I ran, despite all of the articles I have read, despite my husband's advice honed from 20 years of experience in the bush. Yes, I ran and I dragged Banjo along behind me (all 117 lbs of him). And I hurt my achilles tendon that had almost healed to boot! In my defense, the bear was too far away to catch me as I was directly across the street from our house and I didn't want Banjo to notice it because who knows what he would do? So, I ran inside and said,

"We saw a bear!!!!!!" Then I crept back out and tried to spy it again. Russ was less than impressed as he ambled to the bathroom in much the same nonchalant way as the bear had sauntered across the street.

"Good for you guys," he said.

I RAN. Shameful.

The excitement did not end there. After about an hour, Banjo began to whine again. Usually when this happens, it is an emergency of the back-end variety. Russ got up this time and I heard the heavy excitement breathing that Banjo displays before every outing. Then I heard the door open, a bark, the door close, and Russ talking to Banjo inside. What happened? More wildlife! A coyote in the middle of the intersection. Russ came back to bed and Banjo whined intermittently for the next 3 hours, keeping everybody awake. It gave me some frightening insight into what having babies will be like.

I finally got up and sat with Banjo to try to keep him quiet so Russ could get some sleep before his 5:30 alarm went off. As a last ditch effort, I let him outside once more but all he did was roll around in the snow and pee. Once inside, I chastised Banjo repeatedly for his whining and obsession with the front door. Finally at about 5:00 I decided to give him one more shot. Let's just say I found out what all the fuss was about. It was a back-end emergency after all.

I did not want this to be an all animals all the time blog, but apparently I don't have much else going on right now. Ah well... time for oatmeal.