Young Love

From the balcony next to my bedroom, I have a beautiful view of the wide ravine behind my house. There is a small stream at the bottom of it and one end of the ravine opens up into a state park. Many wild animals enjoy the park and use the stream as a watering hole. Last year a den of coyotes moved in just a few hundred yards from my home.

As the pups from this den began to mature one of them seemed to make friends with the dogs in the surrounding yards. My beagle, Sapphire, was one of them. Every evening the coyote pup would begin its call; “Yip! Yip! Yaooooo!” Whatever Sapphire was doing, she would drop and bolt behind the couch and out her pet-door to the back fence to answer the call with her own hounds howl. The two canines would exchange howls for twenty minutes or so every night. Then, abruptly, the noise would stop, and Sapphire would come back in the house and curl up on the couch. Most of the Spring and Summer evenings were spent the same way, with the two conversing every evening.

Sometime in the early Fall, the young coyote’s visits with Sapphire became fewer and further between. She took to patrolling the fence in the evenings, occasionally being rewarded by the familiar Yip! Yi’! Yaooooo, and the ensuing conversation. But almost always, late at night, we would hear the raucous howling of a large pack. Sapphire, of course, would join in from her place behind the fence, but she wasn’t ever really included. The young coyote had a new group of friends and he was free to roam the wilds with them, pillaging and plundering the local rabbit burrows. Before long, the early evening conversations stopped all together, and only the sounds of the pack could be heard from far away.

One morning, Sapphire and I went out for a walk. I decided to take her through the ravine so she could enjoy sniffing around for small critters. Suddenly, we stood face to face with a young coyote. He slowly backed away, then gave a quick “Yip! Yip! Yahoooo!” and turned and ran up the trail. Sapphire didn’t respond at all. She simply stared after him for a few moments, then turned and walked deliberately in the other direction.