In recent years, I’ve had close encounters with two different large, wild mammals that I didn’t want to mess with, with my overly friendly and curious dog along, unleashed.
Most recently was what I can only describe as a herd of whitetail deer that were startled out of the undergrowth as we walked past them totally unaware that they were even there. They darted our mere feet in front of us and just kept coming, a good twenty of them. This was on my mother’s acreage in North Carolina, just uphill from the Yadkin River. My dog started after them, not barking or aggressive at all, he had his frisbee in his mouth. He no doubt thought he was going to play with them. He was so close I was sure he’d get kicked, gored, bitten or otherwise mauled. He disappeared over the hills and into the woods running after them. He was gone for hours and I didn’t have the first clue how to begin searching for him. But, he came back on his own, muddied and sans his precious frisbee.
Second was several years ago during a weeklong vacation to the NC Outer Banks. I’d gone outside after dark to put the day’s garbage in the garbage can, much younger same dog along with me as he always insisted whenever I went outside. I practically walked into the large ass end of a wild Spanish Mustang, which was munching on the bayberry bushes growing on the dunes to either side of the sandy driveway. Muah dog ran straight up to it, again wagging his tails. I panicked thinking he was about to be kicked. Fortunately, the wild horse just backed out of the bayberry bushes, snorted and ambled away down the drive and the dog listened when I called him back. This house was in the 4x4 area just above Corolla.
Not deer but the most scared I’ve ever been was when I ran across a troop of macaques (baboons) in a Hong Kong country park.
Some weird British colonial administrator imported them to Hong Kong in the 19th century supposedly to control some other plant or animal. The things are everywhere in the New Territories and they are very aggressive. You can’t hike in some of the parks with food because they’ll steal it. Literally they’ll take your backpack off your back and rip it to shreds looking for food. God forbid you have a baby in a stroller!
Anyway, I was jogging in Pineapple Cove park. I had my HK ID card, enough cash for the bus home and a coke, and a bottle of water. I’d seen the signs at the entrance, with pictures of the bites the beast can give and never bothered them, and made a point to not carry food. I came around a blind curve and there was a whole troop of macaques (About 15) fighting over the carcass of a roast duck. I guess they’d stolen it from whoever was in front of me. I surprised them. I stopped. I didn’t want to run away, I was afraid they’d chase me, but it was obvious I couldn’t stay either. So, trying to not0 look afraid, I began to slowly back up. I realized, in a sudden flash of insight why everyone else on this trail had a big stick and often a dog with them. The macaques started snarling and fanning out in a 1/2 circle as I backed. They were going to surround me. I can’t think of many ways to die more awful than to be eaten by baboons!
Luckily a couple I’d passed came up the trail behind me. When it ceased to be 15 macaques versus one unarmed human and became a tall Australian woman with a bamboo stick, her Chinese husband with an aluminum walking stick, a large collie, and an unarmed human who didn’t appear afraid the macaques retreated to the trees.
From then on, I was an urban jogger.