She’s My Bitch and You Can’t Have Her

I’m happy to say I did not have to defend Carly’s honor today all though shortly after dawn this morning I truly wondered if this silly dog was about to be coyote chow.
We were hiking down towards Shadow Lake out of Agnew Meadows at a rather brisk rate as we had a very full day of eastern Sierra fun shad of us. All I had on my mind was hike fast, hike fast, hike fast as my feet ate up the ground on the sandy trail and we made our way deeper into the wilderness.
I nearly pooped myself I was so surprised when the first coyote yipped at me. I have seen so many coyotes so many times on my mountain expeditions. I have never, ever had one yip at me or bark at me. Before I could have another thought I realized there was at least one other coyote on the opposite side of the trail to my left.
The two coyotes were yipping and barking frantically across the single track mountain trail at each other. I grabbed Carly by her ridiculous sweater hopping to contain her from running to “Greet” the coyotes as she loves to do with any dog she meets.
I may talk a lot of shit on Carly, I may call her a bitch and way worse things but today as she stood in her silly sweater petrified as coyotes on both sides of the trail yipped at her I picked up the largest pointiest looking stone I could and yelled at the top of my lungs
“This is my bitch and you can’t have her!”
It was very prison like. I felt like I was on the set of Orange is the New Black Canine Version.
Carly must have understood that these at least two coyotes were not friends because she was shaking and shivering as I put the leash on her. At least now she couldn’t go give mama coyote a kiss on the lips. ( My thinking is these coyotes may have had pups with them and perhaps were just trying to warn us away with the yipping and the ruckus. They never advanced on us at all. It was more like they were just communicating across the trail at each other and we happens to just meander into the middle of it.
I feel so very thankful I managed to quickly get Carly leashed as I’ve heard stories from forest rangers that female coyotes will try to lure domesticated dogs to them and then the pack will attach the dog.
Carly is a very lucky mutt. After this we quickly hurried up the trail to Lake Ediza, feeling thankful for good health and having those coyotes miles behind us.

We got to the lake, over six miles up the trail in two and a half hours; we were flying up that trail after being startled awake by the coyote rude awakening!
Sometimes people ask me why I do this; Why do I hike twelve miles in a day? Why do I make new naked hippie friends at the hot springs?
Life is not lived behind a desk. Memories are made on the trails and exploring the back roads.