Coyote Control
‘Worrying about those cows kept me awake. The cattle on the far range needed a look see. It’d been too long. I opened the barbed wire gate.” Beef and elk cows lifted their heads. They waddled and pranced away, as his side-by-side puttered across the cattle guards. “My nostrils and throat cinched up from the smell. I positioned myself downwind and followed it through a maze of service berries to the scene of the crime.”
Vulture’s flopped into a trot. Their blood red beaks lifted into flight. A bull calf, born light and with a big sack of baby makers, lay dead. His offspring would be easy on the birth canal with plenty of juice for the herd. “They didn’t even leave a tip. With that profile, he’d be worth six grand in a few years. Now, his back-end and brisket are coyote turds, and I have to come back tonight to shoot the perps. Second time this month. Damn it!’
Coyotes wage war on the cattleman, like my buddy John, every single day. They are cunning, ruthless and horny. Extermination is every state’s goal. They’re responsible for half of predator mortality on the American cattle herd. Cattle don’t grow in chicken houses. They free range.
We’re not talking whitetail deer. We’re talking beef; It’s-What’s-For-Dinner beef. The USDA recommends both lethal and non-lethal variables to reduce coyote predation. Less coyotes are good and drastically less is a Godsend.
Enter the Blue Heeler, the American cultural appropriation of the Australian Cattle Dog. The iconic blue ‘merle’ fur coats a body built for unmatched stamina. The ice blue eyes are windows into a soul bred for the ultimate sacrifice. Ole’ Blue has the loyalty of a youth-football grandmother, smarts to outwit the most patient owners, and a downright admirable hatred of coyotes.
Solutions don’t come more economically feasible than Blue Heelers protecting livestock. The genetic strains course from ranch to ranch and state to state. Whether walking the barbed wire fence or hogging the best spot on the couch, territoriality is their birthright. But enter any ownership commitment with the knowledge your new roommate would kill coyotes for sport, if you’d rep him.
The thorough range of Blue Heeler mixes occupy the ‘non-lethal’ coyote control euphemism. If the little mottled rascals knew what that meant they’d find whoever, or whatever, started the rumor, attach to its neck and shake the life out of it. Standing over the carcass torn but non-plussed, our hero would toss the illusion of his mercy on the heap of bloody scraps.
If you want a dog with a good sniffer that can handle coyotes? Breed a Blue Heeler with a Pointer. How about a really needy couch commander that can handle coyotes? Breed it with a Pit Bull. Want a land piranha that will bait a coyote for hours in a deadly game of cat and mouse, patiently waiting to kill it? Train a Blue or Red Heeler puppy, or one mixed with a Jack Russell.
Riding fence patrol restrained ensures Hank, Jaws or Tiny doesn’t bound away at the first coyote sighting. Chains are widely available on ranches. Blue Heelers are too smart for rope.
In direct affront to the coyote menace, Blue Heelers exhibit extreme confidence in strategy and self-awareness of endurance. Our pal has the superior intellect to engage his enemies on his own terms and the superior capacity to win the late rounds permanently.
It is the unlucky coyote, lurking for an easy meal, that encounters a Blue Heeler on the sage flats of Wyoming. Ole’ Blue feints a raging attack into the coyote’s space. Predictably, Wile E. attempts to draw Blue back to his family pack waiting in ambush. Blue, setting the stage, retreats. He entices Wile E. to respond. The coyote has two choices. It can either A, leave. Or B, begin an agonizing crawl to a self-inflicted end.
Blue exhausts the coyote from hours of charging back and forth across an imaginary line the Cattle Dog created. The coyote’s paw missteps. He involuntarily drops an ear. Our little man is instantaneously triggered. Fortunes reverse. In a scene of savage territoriality, the predator becomes prey.
At your next barbeque or celebratory night out, before you gnaw into your burger or slice into your steak, thank God for the Blue Heeler.
“What about the pigs,” the suburbanite might ask.
What about ‘em. Pigs can handle their own business, when they’re not eating each other.