Shaman the Coyote
Blog, Coyotes | March 24, 2012
30 Seconds of Joyous Coyote Mischief
Animal Story, Blog, Coyotes | March 16, 2011
It was cold. Very cold. It was predicted to be 20 degrees below zero. Here that usually means 30 below. Pimpernel, that excellent
coyote, is pretty tough but this year she started shedding fur on the back half of her body just as winter started in. Very poor timing! It started at her tail, then moved to her hindquarters and across her back. Perhaps it was related to the genetics thatblocked her esophagus when she was a baby. That was a timing thing too.
In any case, although she has her own private box on an elevated platform facing the sun, 30 below made us worry so we decided to bring her in until the cold snap eased. But the logistics were complex. We only have three usable heated spaces for the winter – the 14’ x 20’ log cabin that serves as our office with work stations 
for four people plus storage and a squirrel; our 18’ x 30’ living cabin, and the animal kitchen which is full except for a narrow passageway through to the bears and wolves. We couldn’t put her in the animal kitchen because that was taken by Banty the rooster, still recuperating from his stroke. Coyotes and chickens don’t mix. Well, actually Pimpernel probably wouldn’t agree but Banty would not have had a stress-free recuperation with a coyote banging about in her cage trying to get at him. We couldn’t bring her into our living cabin because besides two dogs, Cucumber the House Wolf considers that her personal palace. Cucumber isn’t into sharing with dogs or coyotes or anything else and we tend to indulge her after her two near-death experiences.
So we pushed things around in the office; locked Tuttle the squirrel in the bathroom and brought her in. We didn’t think about the plants, soon to be in shock.
It is not easy or exactly peaceful to have a vibrant lively ball of wild energy in a place of work. We had her in a cage big enough for a moose but that didn’t matter – she wanted to explore all those interesting sights and smells and demanded to be let out out out out out and she wasn’t going to rest until we let her out out out out out. She was having none of this cage stuff. She didn’t want to hear how lucky she was compared to the other coyotes who had to stay out in the cold (though plumply well padded);
she wanted what she wanted and she wanted it NOW with full coyote energy. Knowing better, we still gave in before the force of her demands and let her out for an office exploration, hoping that once she had a chance to explore she would settle down. The cage was roomy and lined with fresh hay, there were coyote toys and she would have been among human company which she really enjoys.
In a flash she was out, racing about the floor sniffing and pulling at anything that could be pulled, snuffling and scratching at the base of the bathroom door where Tuttle was housed; then the next level- paws on desk rifling through papers and
folders; then the next tier, up on the desk sending papers flying. Then she noticed the poor plants. By the time we got there (two seconds) the kalanchoe was on it side minus several leaves, stems and flowers with tooth marks on the rest of the leaves, and being pulled out of its pot, soil spraying in all directions. Next would have been the fourth tier- the tops of bookshelves. It was a coyote orgy of whirling dervish energy and possession (everything was MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE) so there was no way to take it from her without a confrontation. We foolishly hadn’t laid in a supply of special treats. Jean quickly went to get some and we tried to prevent more damage until he returned. Fortunately the same “I want what I want and I want it now” works with treats, and catching her attention by waving them in front of her racing nose, Jean threw them to the back of the cage and sanity was restored. We started the clean up and repotting and apologized to the plant, but she still wanted out out out out out. So we came to a compromise – she would go out during the warmer daytime office hours, and each evening she would come in again. This meant a lot of transportation issues solved with a lot of treats but it was worth the peace. She was generally pleased all around as she won either way.
PS – if you look at the words in capitals; MINE and NOW, you get a good glimpse of part of coyote character. At least Pimpernel’s. However, just to set the record straight, she is also unbelievably sweet and affectionate, and strikes many blows for coyote awareness and appreciation by humans.
A Coyote with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Blog, Coyotes, Wellness & Spirtuality | October 19, 2010
Internationally respected energy healer Donna Eden and her husband, energy psychologist Dr. David Feinstein, visited recently with the Earthfire animals. David is renowned for his work with PTSD war veterans. We asked him if he might help with our traumatized little coyote girl Faerytail. This video is what happened during the encounter.
$5000 Challenge Grant for Small Animal Garden
Blog, Coyotes, Foxes | September 17, 2010
We have received a matching grant of $5000.00 for the Small Animal Garden! Now all we need is the match. Please help us 
obtain this by donating to the Small Animal Garden so our coyotes and foxes can have more time outside their enclosures. As you use PayPal to make your donation make sure to specify that you want the money to go towards the Small Animal Garden. The sooner we get funds the sooner we can start on the project before the ground freezes. Thank You!
More about the Small Animal Garden
We were given a wonderful donation two years ago to give the small creatures spacious enclosures but that is not the same as a garden to spend their days in. They need to feel the grass under their feet; to dig to their heart’s content, to leap after grasshoppers and dig for ground squirrels, to splash through a stream and lie under the shade of a tree on a fall afternoon with the sweet scent of fall wafting past their sensitive noses. For them we so want to build a Small Animal Garden.
I would also like to add a note of urgency. Feather, our sweet, sweet loving elder-fox was rescued from a fur farm 12 years ago – she has been waiting a long time and may not make it through the winter. Streak the coyote is 11. Thus we have made the Small Animal Garden our highest priority. Then, after that, individual gardens for the bears…
To make a donation click here
Small is Big
Blog, Coyotes | September 17, 2010
An Attempt at Translation and Interpretation Between Species with Some Kernels of Truth To It
Small animals are as important as big ones. Definitely in their own minds, and in actuality too. (In fact the most important life forms that support the earth are the tiniest – it is only we who are more impressed by the big).
The small animals of Earthfire have asked me to set the record straight. They are very, very, very important and wonderful. We humans are just too preoccupied and out of it to know it. Definitely our loss.
They are not too thrilled with my own orientation that ALL life forms are important – they do think, as we do, that they are special, unique and of the greatest worth, more important and wonderful than anything else and I should be paying attention to them only. However they tolerate my giving attention to others, as long as I pay sufficient homage to their particular importance, which I gladly do. While I believe in the abstract position that all life is sacred, philosophy is rather a fleshless and bland place in which to live – it is concrete, physical flesh and blood beings that give vibrancy and meaning and mischief and just enough inconvenience to be really real – they “flesh out” the concept.
Now if you want real vibrant flesh and blood, vitality, inconvenience and a sense of their own importance, there is nothing like a coyote. Well – it is a mistake, even an insult to talk about coyotes as a species, as they are all so individual (do we like it when people talk about “humans”? No. We each are different from the mass of humans no doubt, better in fact. Same with them). I should say rather for sheer vitality it is hard to beat Pimpernel or Willow. Some of you have read about “Willow the Drama Queen” and her shameless manipulations of poor sweet Streak, way outclassed without even knowing it (see Meet the Animals ). Willow, assessing us with her highly intelligent and skeptical eyes, seeing what she can get away with, what she can cadge out of us, accepting all as her due, supremely self-possessed.
And then there is Pimpernel, her huge personality and aura vibrating out from her like that of a major movie star. At first Willow deferred to her but the stage could only accommodate one diva so we had to separate the two. Pimpernel, rescued from a fur farm, was softened by a terrible early experience where because of a medical condition she was slowly starving. She was a few hours from actual death, we frantically giving her IV’s, before we finally got a correct diagnosis and through massive effort and attention were able to save her (see Pimpernel and the Coyote Refugees )Only something that dire could break through her fierce independence to create a lasting and absolutely beautiful bond of interdependence and joy in one another’s company (yes I am dependent on her – how much poorer my life would be without her in it)! Some of her self preservation energy, while still strong, has been diverted to appreciation of humans, whom she greets with a joy that astounds all lucky enough to meet her.
We could be tempted to say then that perhaps it is female coyotes who dominate through various wiles, but that again would be a
generalization not worthy of coyotes. Because there is Faerytale. Faerytale moves everyone who meets her. There is something about her dainty fragile beauty; her timid personality that makes people want to protect her. When they come to visit and see her begin darting about in alarm at the human energy around her, feeling trapped, running behind her box and peeking out at them in a mixture of fear and curiosity, body tensed for instant flight at any move they make, they want to protect her. If a visitor so much as shifts their weight as they stand watching her, she panics and they cry out “Oh, I’m sorry!” She is a tiny delicate helpless beauty; an exquisite creature with courage despite her terror. There is Skitter, her brother we believe (they both arrived at the same time and in a similar traumatized state), was worse at first — he was so scared we thought he would die…all systems were paralyzed by fear. Faerytale would comfort him with little paws placed gently on his back and sides to try to get him to respond. And we could not get him to eat or relax. But with Pimpernel’s help he snapped out of it. Still skittish, he has grown into a self assured macho-energy male with a sense of self assurance about him while his sister has never recovered even after years of meeting people and being treated gently and with love. It is a mystery.
So there you are – five coyotes, five dramatically different personalities. And I haven’t even started on doing honor to the foxes Feather, Lightfoot and Whisper, and their individuality.
The Drama Queen
Animal Story, Animal Tales, Blog, Coyotes | January 14, 2010
Willow the coyote was on her back screaming bloody murder as Streak stood over her growling mightily, touching not a hair on her body. But she certainly was making him feel powerful! It wouldn’t matter where we were on the ranch, we could hear those screams and picture exactly what was happening.
The drama started very early in their relationship. Willow had been rescued from a den at a golf course and we were taking care of her in our cabin. After a couple of weeks young Streak arrived. In spite of the fact that the cabin was already her territory and he was smaller and younger, when he approached her for the first time, she looked at him, paused a moment, flipped on her back and submitted. Male-female relations determined at that age? We only know what we observed.
When they were old enough, we moved them outside together. As they matured Streak dominated her more and more. She responded with more and more drama, shrieking as if she were being ripped apart, legs waving piteously in the air, Streak on his tiptoes standing astride her snarling ferociously. It all looked so very real. Kind visitors would worry.
One day I was standing there getting ready to feed them juicy green grapes. Willow was on her back waving and screaming. I was standing behind her head as she carried on. I accidently dropped a grape and it rolled past Willow’s left ear. Without missing a beat she turned her head, snapped up the grape and returned to her original position, continuing with her ear-piercing yelps. Streak, concentrating on his growling, never knew a thing.
How did she do it? She couldn’t even see the grape until it became level with the corner of her left eye, and it was rolling pretty fast. There was a nanosecond of opportunity between when she could have seen the movement, recognize it as food, roll her head to the left, and grab it. But to be able to notice it in the midst of such drama, focus on it, realize what it was, act on it while carrying on for Streak . . . I don’t think the emotions were running very high, truly. I don’t think there was fear and trembling. And to have the presence of mind to snap back into position as if nothing had happened . . . I wish I could have seen the look in her eye but I wasn’t in the right position. I would bet it was satisfaction, on many levels, one a bit unflattering to females of a certain type. But after witnessing that event, whenever I heard the cries from anywhere on the ranch, I would have a little thrill of appreciation for the sheer acting skill of it. Talent should always be appreciated.
Badger and Coyote
Badger, Coyotes | November 18, 2009
A Combination that Works…Together
We brought Miss Clover the Badger and Streak the Coyote out into a field. They had never officially met before. After some experimental sniffing and digging, Miss Clover found a likely spot for a meal and started to dig for real, dirt flying up behind her like a little brown geyser. Streak stopped, watched what she was doing, and parked himself at what turned out to be a second entrance. A vole came shooting up seeking safety from the onslaught behind it. Streak pounced, caught it, held it in his mouth, walked around to Miss Clover and trotted up to her as she continued furiously digging, oblivious to the vole on the other end. Streak tossed it invitingly up in the air. She ignored it – she probably didn’t even notice she was so into her digging. He did it again. She didn’t see. Still holding it delicately between his jaws, he tried bumping her in the side with his nose to get her attention. It didn’t work. He bumped her side with his nose again, harder this time.
Finally pulled from her focus, Miss Clover noticed, stopped digging, and making for Streak bumped him back, decisively, in his side. Still intent on a friendly encounter, he bowed, hind end up in the air tail wagging, front legs flat on the ground, inviting her to play.
It would be nice to be able to report that she responded to the clear invitation to play, but that is not the case. Despite all his best seductive efforts, she single-mindedly returned to her digging. But she did not attack him. She wasn’t even irritated – she was simply otherwise occupied and telling him to leave her alone.
Seen through the lens of biology, the likely explanation is that there is an advantage to coyotes to hunt with badgers. That makes sense. But it doesn’t mean that is the only thing going on. What was the “advantage” for Streak in inviting Miss Clover to play? Why was there no aggression on her part? Perhaps when relieved of the stress of needing to find food, safety, territory in which to hunt, an entirely different side of wild animals has the freedom to express itself. Perhaps when given the opportunity, without stress, they enjoy the company of species other than their own. I would like to hear your thoughts.
Tiny Size, Immense Presence
Coyotes | November 18, 2009
She arrived on our doorstep about one week old, very still and so cold, so cold. It was a little coyote girl. She appeared to be dead, but holding her, I detected what might be the faintest heartbeat. I wrapped her in a towel and put her on a hot water bottle. It was a long time before warmth returned to her body. She lived! During the day she stayed with me, wrapped in a shirt around my waist; at night she cried out for companionship until I took her into the bed. She would snuggle close, contented, peaceful, quiet.
For some reason that month we had many visitors and school programs. With all her coyote life force she taught, she showed, she helped people feel, deep in their hearts. It is impossible to describe the look of wonder and delight on little faces as they touched her. Utter magic. Four hundred people she taught that month. But despite our best efforts, as April turned into May, she started to fade. There was no medical reason – she just gently faded away until she was gone. She was on this earth for only four weeks, but what an impact she made! An impact not measured by time, or size, but by heart and spirit.
Pimpernel & the Coyote Refugees
Coyotes | November 18, 2009
We are in receipt of two marmot and three coyote babies. The Scarlet Pimpernel (one of the coyotes) came with a genetic or congenital defect that prevented food from passing into her stomach. She would eat, then throw it up; eat again with desperation, throw it up, seeing food everywhere as she slowly starved to death (“water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”). Trips to the vet, barium x-rays, phone calls, brainstorming. She became so weak she could barely lift her head – but she WANTED TO LIVE, as any good coyote would with their phenomenal life force. We kept her alive with IV fluids – her tiny body had bumps all over where we gave her fluids under her skin, but finally, she was only a few hours from death. I could feel her life force ebbing to that critical point of no return. Another call to the vet and he gave us his last possibility … a ligament at the base of the esophagus that is supposed to release after birth did not let go and was putting a stranglehold on any food going down. They said it was basically a death sentence. She was too young for a major operation the equivalent of open heart surgery … however … Now that we had a picture of what was wrong, we could take action. Feeding tiny amounts of fresh strained chicken soup by eye dropper every hour she beat all odds, made it through the night, and started to gain strength. She started to have the energy to run around the cabin, but we noticed her little legs bending like rubber despite being fed Vitamin D enriched goat’s milk and fresh raw egg yolks donated by our chickens. We added several hours of sunshine, and vitamin and calcium supplements for a 50-pound dog. Her legs straightened out. She is now pure hell on wheels and a bully besides – so sweet though, and so charming when she wants to be! Completely irresistible. At 4 months we’ll see if she needs the open heart surgery to correct her esophagus. But the pleasure she gets out of life! The vitality and joy – she barely touches the ground as she darts hither and thither faster than the eye can follow — so light and full of ecstasy, leaps and twirls.
The other two came in a miserable state. I have never seen an animal in such terror as little Skitter. His sister Faerytail too, though not as bad. He lay frozen in a corner for hours in one position, face frozen in a grimace of fear. His legs were drawn up tight to his body like a person in a long coma, unable to respond even to gentle washing of his tummy with a soft warm sponge. You wonder what happened. For those of you who saw Murder In The First, he reminded me of that prisoner, all twisted and distorted; or of Dov in the book Exodus, after his experiences in the concentration camps. In my more poetic moments in the early dawn, half asleep, I wondered if he held the terror of all the coyotes we have tortured over the centuries. That made me all the more determined to help him live … to metaphorically undo some of that.
He refused to eat, staring out with terrified eyes, not even closing them to sleep. He emanated a feeling that he had given up, that he had decided life was not worth living. A coyote! Jean held him for hours, reading, watching the news. I would put him under my shirt and tied it around my waist so he wouldn’t fall out. He would find the darkest tightest spot, usually under my armpit, and I would walk around doing my chores, slightly lumpy. Sometimes there were two lumps … Faerytail also needed extra comfort and contact, though at least she would eat and show some interest in life. Construction workers on the cabin looked at me oddly when I walked by, my shirt suddenly wiggling as they tried to burrow deeper. Faerytale would timidly invite Skitter to play, touching him gently with a paw. He would barely respond with a twitch.
We named him Skitter because he was so light, so fragile, like those delicate bugs skittering across the surface of water. We got him to gingerly take in little bits of food but without enthusiasm. Then one day, after trying everything we could think of to ease and reassure him without success, fearful he would waste away, we released the PIMPERNEL in the same room. She took one look, streaked over and assumed the stiff-legged dominance position over him, growling savagely with lips drawn back. He stared in bug-eyed panic and disbelief. Then in a flash he uncurled, rolled on his back, wiggled all over, peed in ecstasy and whimpered and squealed in delighted submission.
Skitter started coming out of his shell. He still wants nothing to do with humans, retreats into his frozen position at any unknown or sudden sound or movement and into a depression when Pimpernel is taking her sun bath. But his appetite is good, and he comes alive again as soon as she enters the room, enthusiastically running and playing with his BELOVED who continues to dominate him mercilessly. Coyote squeals of ecstatic submission ricochet throughout the cabin as he flips on his back with her jaws at his throat – then he seeks it out again. (Willow, our 4 year-old coyote does that with Streak, screaming across the ranch as he never touches a hair on her body. I thought it was a female drama queen thing, but my mind is being constantly broadened). In any case there is one coyote that means the world to another, that in his eyes is everything, who is precious and irreplaceable.
Nomad Lives by Jennifer Sauer
