This morning I left home and was driving Li’l Foot to school. There is a connector road that connects our small town with the big World and main street that takes us to school and the highway. The area along this connector road is both residential in some areas and swampy in other areas. There’s a cow pasture along this road. And an old age home. And a park with baseball diamonds.
This morning as I came up the hill with the baseball diamond park on my right with a chain link fence dividing it off from the road. I saw something dash from the parking lot to the grassy area towards the fence. At first I figured it was someone who was in the park playing catch with their dog. The size of the animal was about the size and color of a Golden Retriever. As I got closer, there was no car in the parking lot. And there was no person either. Just this dog. And then I thought, alright, it’s probably not a dog, it’s probably a fox. But it was bigger and not the right color of a fox, so I thought, ok, probably a coyote. But then I got right up next to it as I was driving by, now pissing off the guy in the pick up behind me for not having my foot on the gas (but I didn’t slam on the breaks either). When I got right up next to it, it had stopped and was taking in it’s surroundings. It turned it’s head and it’s ears were really tiny to be a coyote. And it wasn’t terribly fluffy like a coyote, the fur was shorter and looked more like a calico kitty with spots of all colors. And I noticed it had a really short tail, maybe only 6 inches long or so.
It was neither a dog, nor a fox, nor a coyote. And it sure wasn’t a deer. It was one of these. Click on that link and then click on the little picture to make it bigger. Look!!! Smaller than coyote ears!!! And LOOK…a 6 inch tail!!!HOLY CRAP!!! I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. And for a moment I forgot Li’l Foot was in the car with me and blurted out “Holy shit!” So, well, if she starts saying holy shit, I’ll have no one else to blame but that damn bobcat that I saw. Seriously…A BOBCAT?!?!?! I had NO IDEA they lived in our area, but I’ve now googled bobcat and they can live in Southern Canada to Northern Mexico and ANYWHERE IN BETWEEN…and we ARE…ANYWHERE in between!!! Yikes! One more reason why I just can’t leave my house in the dark, because the sighting this morning? Was all of about 1.25 MILES FROM MY HOUSE!!! So now when the dog is seemingly barking at NOTHING AT ALL…I’m totally going to be subconsciously convincing myself it’s a damn bobcat outside our bay window salivating, waiting for some prey to just open our front door…AND THEN POUNCE ON ME!!!
Yikes. I don’t know how you feel about firearms, but that is about the only thing that would make me feel safe when facing one of those big kitties!
Freaky! When I lived in my hometown, my Lab use to bark at, what I thought was, nothing. Until my then husband told me it was most likely a bobcat. It was then that I got on him to finish fencing in the yard.