Jackie and Leilani’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure
August 22, 2011
My neighborhood is on the rim of a canyon, and we share our space with a large coyote population. I hear them late at night sometimes: the yipping, the occasional howl, and the blood-curdling final scream of whatever critter they manage to hunt down. It’s an uneasy symbiosis. Despite the fact that we don’t like them, they do help keep the rodent population down. And despite the fact that they aren’t particularly fond of us humans either, every once in a while one of our pets inadvertently becomes their banquet.
In the early morning hours one day last week, I was awakened by an attack in progress. I jumped out of bed and ran to my balcony to see if I could throw something at the coyote or do something—anything—to stop the attack. My neighbor Leilani had heard it too, and she blasted out of her front door with a flashlight. Between the two of us, we scared off the coyote, but a badly injured cat lay moaning on the sidewalk. Once I got downstairs and out the door, Leilani passed the flashlight to me to hold off two circling coyotes while she ran back in for a cat carrier. We gently nudged the cat into the carrier, and I took off for the emergency animal hospital, still in my jammies.
The next day was frantic with efforts to find the cat’s owner: signs posted all over the neighborhood, ads on Craigslist, and an APB to our community’s Yahoo group. The cat had been stabilized, but Leilani and I were traumatized, sorely in need of some medication of our own, preferably in the form of a martini.
Later that afternoon I got the sad call from the hospital. The kitty had not survived. In that instant, Leilani and I went from feeling like hero rescuers to abject failures. And as luck would have it, we found the owner shortly thereafter: a new neighbor whose cat had been frightened and run away. Her name was Cali, and we think she was coming back home when she was attacked. It was a grim and tearful weekend in the ‘hood.
In my rational mind, I know that the coyote was only doing what coyotes do. But it’s hard to stay rational when your heart is hurting.Cali was a spectacularly beautiful tortoiseshell cat, and her owner, Melanie, loved her deeply. It will take some time to recover from this, but Leilani and I have decided to be proactive. She now has an air gun stationed close to her front door, and I found a few big rocks to keep on my balcony. I also plucked the driver from my golf bag and put it by the front door. I can’t hit a golf ball with it, but I’ll bet I can drive a coyote an admirable distance.
