The Pup Beside the Highway

 

They saw the car ahead stop, and drop the little pup out beside the road, and drive away, and disappear into the pouring rain. The pup stood, bewildered – and what could one do? They didn’t need another dog, but they could not simply drive by and leave the little throwaway. So they stopped. The pup, tail wagging came to them, and they picked it up and took it into the car, where it sat contentedly on the rear seat. A red collar arounds its neck, a leash and yet, it wasn’t exactly an ordinary pup. Was it?

 

No. It was a coyote pup.

 

What the beginning of the story is we will never know. Likely someone saw a litter of wild coyotes – perhaps the mother was killed, perhaps there was only one pup – at any rate, someone thought that having a wild animal for a pet would be challenging, interesting, and attention getting. Soon, perhaps, they discovered that having wild creature for a pet is not only illegal, but very unwise. Once it as thought very manly to own a real wolf, even if one had to keep it in a pen out behind the house. Surely a coyote would be almost as good?

 

No. Wild animals grow up to be wild. For a while, for the time that they would naturally spend in the family group, they may be perfectly amiable; then the time comes when, in the wild, the young would break away from its family and live, independently, free. At that point, freedom is what they want, desire – and will have. Perhaps the coyote pup had somehow made the people who had found him understand that, while he no doubt appreciated the food and warmth they gave him – he would grow up to be a wild, free coyote.

 

Even more than most animals, coyotes want freedom. They are perfectly adapted to survival – they understand life, what is required – what happened and why – what is happening and, usually, what is about to happen. And, I swear, they are mind readers with a wicked sense of humour – I realize that, saying that, I will be accused of attributing to them human characteristics. Except I have raised several dozen coyote pups and they are unbelievably clever.

 

The little roadside pup was brought to the Sanctuary. We were concerned because he was so interested to humans and then that signal of something more about to happen – the phone rang.

 

Beside another highway, a wild coyote had been found killed. Beside her, starved and very frightened, was a pup. It, too, was brought to the Sanctuary. After a proper time for quarantine, and after appropriate health care, the two pups were put together. Just a few moments sitting on opposite sides of the cage, eyeing each other thoughtfully – after no one will ever know what actually communication passed between the two – they were suddenly together. A family.

 

So they spent the summer together, and the fall, and they grew. The tame pup grew to know that humans were not nearly as important as another coyote. The second one has never grown tame. Just now they are waiting out the long cold of the winter, learning about snow, listening to the wild coyotes out in the woods. Spring will come, and, when the time is right, and with all the proper shots, they will be taken out to a carefully chosen place, far far from highways, and as far from humans as possible, and they will go free.

 

The red collar and leash are hanging up in the barn. Useless things for coyotes.