Intruders

It was a lazy weekend day, and I was watching a movie with Dylan. Rhonda burst in: "Hal, two dogs have the llamas cornered!" I jumped into my shoes and grabbed a BB rifle to scare them away. I handed the BB rifle to Dylan, then unlocked a .22 rifle in case the BB rifle didn't work.

I thought about leaving Dylan in the house with Rhonda, but he's very protective of our animals, and besides, the day will come when he might have to deal with such a situation himself. We ran up to the barn and found the llamas huddled together. Looking across the brook to the far driveway, we could see the two dogs beating a retreat.

The llamas were agitated, and Felipe, the oldest, was actually trembling. We patrolled the area, Dylan gripping the BB gun with a fierce scowl on his face. No sign of the dogs.

We had trouble with predators during the first few years we lived here. Although we're only twenty-five minutes from town, we're in the foothills, living in nature. Raccoons have killed chickens, a pet turkey, and one of our cats. A black bear killed our two pygmy goats, and returned a few months later to attack one of our llamas. Mountain lions have been seen in our "neighborhood," and two or three times a week, we'll hear coyotes howling and yipping at night.

For the last few years, though, animal troubles have been few. More people have built houses, so there's more traffic, and I suppose the predators have made themselves more scarce. But with the visit by our dog intruders, I was reminded of something I learned soon after we brought our llamas home in '94: more llamas are killed in the United States by domestic dogs than any other animal.

I was relieved that I didn't have to shoot one or both of our canine intruders. I've never killed a dog, and I'll rather skip that experience.