Scarin' up Dinner

I take our dog out to a forest preserve park that's designated specifically for "off-leash" walks. (It's also the home of a model airplane flying club and a bunch of birders but that's a different story.) It's mostly just prairie grass, shrubs and a few wooded areas on roughly 20 acres, I'd say. There's one wooded area that's probably a little over five acres on its own off one corner of the overall property. The park district typically mows a five-foot wide path around the prairie part and there's a path worn naturally from people walking in the woods.

On Tuesday, there was a new path which split off the main path around the perimeter of the wooded area. We headed down this uncharted terrain and followed it along the backside of the woods. When we got near to the end, I heard Nina (our dog) come flying up behind me, then she shot past me as fast as I've ever seen her run. She dove into the tall grass and two large deer took off running. One must have been a doe (didn't see any antlers) and she chased it into the woods.

The other was a huge buck. He realized he wasn't being chased and stopped. He saw me and kept his eyes trained on me - probably deciding whether or not he could take me. I'm no hunter, but I spent Thanksgiving in Wisconsin for years and this was easily an eight-point rack.

I was worried that the two deer would realize that they were being menaced by a 30 pound dog and turn on her. Then I'd have to spend the rest of my life explaining how I got beat up by a deer. I remembered a big stick/log we had passed and ran back to it, then I started yelling for Nina as loud as possible. We were far enough out that nobody would have heard me yelling.

Nina came running back and we turned around and started back toward the main path. The deer took off in the other direction. Whew.

And I thought we were going to have to worry about gangs when we moved closer to Aurora...