Another Texan Encounters a Coyote

Ok, I am not a Texan, like Govenor Perry, but I live in North Texas and we have coyotes here.  For those of you who might not be familiar with the story, Gov. Perry claimed, last year, that as he was taking an early morning jog with his dog, on a trail near his $10,000 a month tax-payer funded rental home, he encountered a coyote which, he claimed, looked threatening.  So he shot it.  With a Ruger LCP .380 with a laser sight. 

This isn't an anti-gun statement by the way.  I have a concealed handgun license issued by the State of Texas and I do, on occasion, carry a handgun, either a .380 or a 9mm.

Anyway, he was so proud of shooting the coyote that he included the incident in a speech.  That, by the way, is when I told myself that he was planning on running for president.

So this morning, at 5:40AM, when it's still dark, I am jogging with my two dogs, Maggie and Oakley near my home.  I am armed, not with a Ruger, but with a Zune, listening to Bryan Ferry singing "Slave to Love."  A short distance from my house the little dog, Oakley, starts to look off the sidewalk, where there is quite a lot of brush that continues down to the Corp of Engineer property that surrounds Lake Grapevine.  Then Maggie starts to look and both start to pull on their leashes. 

So I pull the earphones off and stop walking.  It's quiet, just a little traffic noise off in the distance.  Then, about 10 feet from me, a coyote sticks its head out of the bushes near the sidewalk, just where the dogs and I were walking.  It looks at me first, then shifts its glance down to the dogs.  We kind of look at each other for about 30 seconds, then I stomp my foot. The coyote promptly pulls back into the bushes and I hear it scamper down the hill a bit.  I walk a little further and stop again, to see the coyote lope across the street (almost getting hit by a car - she didn't look both ways before crossing).

I am pretty sure this is the same immature female coyote I have seen before, crossing the street in the same area, in daylight.  I think she hunts near the lake and has a den on the other side of the road.  She's light colored and skinny.  It's been very hot here and we have a drought, so it must be tough to hunt.

So that's how it ended.  I stomped my foot.

So why did Gov. Perry shoot the coyote he encountered?  Maybe he felt threatened.  Maybe he was scared.  Or maybe he didn't.  Maybe he just thought it would be a good story to tell, to establish his "man-credentials" so he could say, at a speech, "I shot a coyote." 

Personally, that's what I think happened.  I'd hate to think he actually felt threatened by a coyote.