Cougars on the Homestead
When we first moved to our long-wished-for rural property, one of the things I looked forward to most was walking in nature. Almost daily, I rounded up the kids and dog to hike through the woods. That is, until one afternoon, when something disturbing happened.
My children were catching frogs in the pond and I was snacking on salmonberries when, out of the blue, our dog started to growl. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he stared at something I couldn’t see. He sniffed the air and growled again, and then he did something he’d never done before and hasn’t done since: He began to pull on his leash, dragging me back toward our house, barking and growling the entire time. I decided that the dog knew something we didn’t; I rounded up the kids, and back to the house we went.
After my husband heard the story, he walked back to the scene of our dog’s strange behavior to see if he could find any clues about what upset him. What he discovered gave him chills: cougar claw marks on a tree, as well as a cougar den
