Calls of the animals, found and lost

Riding in the country means meeting up with animals, both wild and fenced in. On a 55-mile ride last week that was in ranch country near the Sierra Nevada foothills, my buddy Marc and I rode by many cows, steers and horses. Now, I have to admit, it’s one of my weird hobbies to perfect the sounds various animals make. So if I’m on a ride and I see some wild turkeys, I just do my turkey gobble. Just to make ‘em look! And I do a pretty mean turkey gobble, by the way! I caw at crows, quack at ducks, bah at sheep, just to see if they’ll look up. When they do, they usually have a look of utter confusion on their face, which is hilarious visual entertainment.

After I do a call, I watch their reaction. They’ve just heard a semi-familiar animal call, but all they see are humans riding by on bikes. Cows are great for their “What the fu…?” blank expressions. My cattle moos aren’t bad, I can usually get ‘em to look around as I ride by. But my horse whinny still needs some work. It’s not so easy to make a whinny that really sounds like it came from horse’s mouth! But I’m getting there. I try out my whinnies on most horses I ride by with varying low degrees of neighing proficiency.

But one of the un-fun things about riding in ranch country, is occasionally encountering an unpredictable dog off leash, trying to cross a highway where cars blast by at high speed. We rode by one big dog sitting by the road and I looked back, wondering if he’d be OK. He decided to walk across the two lane road, and I think he made it. I didn’t hear anything to indicate otherwise.

But on these country roads, wild animals venturing across the pavement get hit all the time. They don’t have a chance if they get in the path of a low flying car, truck or semi. You can see blood stains on the pavement, skunks that have gotten hit off to the side of the road, an occasional squirrel turned into roadkill, and even deer carcasses, their skeletons picked clean by carnivorous raptors and vultures.

And sometimes you encounter an animal that breaks your heart. On our last leg of the ride, we came across an old beagle mix wandering out in the road. A truck whose driver sympathized with the dog and saw the danger it was in, slowed down and honked to try to herd it off the road.  But he wasn’t having much luck. Marc turned around and coaxed the dog off to the side of the road, holding its collar as cars whizzed by. The dog would have been hit and killed in minutes if Marc hadn’t grabbed the confused old girl, who had a bandaged leg and a limp and didn’t seem to know where to go. I have a dog, and I was scared for this one, knowing that would be the last place I’d want to see my dog. Marc has two dogs and never hesitates to try to help any he sees in trouble. He told me of a time when he saw a stray dog alongside a busy country road. He pulled over to try to call it over, but he couldn’t get to it in time, and he saw it get hit and killed by a car. Brutal.

This time, the guy in the truck who tried to steer the dog off the road, pulled over. As Marc held her by the collar, the guy checked the dog’s tags. He called the number on his cell phone and someone picked up. “Hey, I found your dog,” said the guy, a young construction worker probably on his way home. “Is her name Angel?”

He told us the guy on the phone lived in Sacramento, about an hour away and had just given the dog to somebody locally. The guy said he’d take Angel in his truck and find the new owner. He picked up the poor old girl and put her in his front seat. We all wondered how this dog hadn’t gotten hit wandering on and along the highway and how it had gotten pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The thing probably was trying to find her original owner and surely hadn’t been penned in properly. We all wondered what the situation was. How could the new owner be too clueless to protect the old dog? The guy thanked Marc for helping him corral her safely and we rode on.

About a mile down the road he passed us in his truck and tapped his horn. He pulled into the dirt driveway of a ramshackle ranch house, which I think he’d found out was the dog owner’s house. It looked like he was going to wait there until the owner showed up.

As I rode on, I couldn’t help but feel for the poor old dog. It was saved from certain ugly death on the road, but the whole thing was just brutally sad. The old dog was given up by her owner for whatever reason, and shipped out of town to a strange place. She didn’t want to be there, so found a way out to look for home. Old, hurting and pretty much left to fend for herself. Made tears come on the drive back home.

But maybe the guy in the truck figured out a way to make sure she was in good hands, either with the new owner or by taking her home himself. I hope so. She was a sweet old dog, was Angel. She deserved the tender loving care of someone who could keep her out of harm’s way. Here’s to Angel finding a caring owner and a better time of it for her twilight time.

And while I try to do animal calls, some dogs can pull a switch and speak English to their owners. Check it out:

Til next time, remember to strap on a helmet before every ride. And then, do your very best to keep the rubber side down!

-- Mark Eric Larson

Mark Eric Larson has written two books of essays, "The NERVE...of Some People's Kids," and "Don't Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer. To read, visit: 
http://www.scribd.com/Mark%20Eric%20Larson/shelfHis blog of personal essays is at: http://marksmuzings.blogspot.com/