[Dailydrool] The Inspector and the deer

[Anne Savidge]

My mother related this story to me last week, but I haven't had time to post to the Drool about it until now. 

My parents live in Wimberley, Texas, which is a small town in the Hill Country. Their neighborhood is semi-rural, and there are lots of white-tailed deer everywhere. Nobody can shoot them within the boundaries of the community in which they live, and I swear the deer know this, so they hang out in people's yards all the time.

My parents did not fence their property, but when they got Inspector Clouseau (formerly Inspector Wrinkles) early this year, Dad put up a 4-foot wire fence straight out from the back porch so that he could safely go out in the yard in an area that's probably about 30 feet wide and 40 feet long.

Unlike my parents' previous basset, Clover, Inspector has always been oblivious to the deer, even when they wander through the unfenced areas only a few dozen feet away. He HAS to be able to smell them, but he just never reacted at all. Until last week.

Normally, Inspector refuses to go outside and go potty before his daily morning walk. He prefers to mark everything he can while out on his walk. On this particular morning, though, he wanted out, so Mom let him out and then watched him through the kitchen windows to see if he was going to dawdle or come straight back in.

Inspector got close to the back of the fenced area, and that's when he noticed the fawn. A single fawn was cavorting in the unfenced area of the yard, skipping around its mother and generally bouncing around the yard. This caught the Inspector's eye, and he let out a single, soft, "Woof!" at the fawn.

Well, this startled the fawn, which dashed over into the next yard and froze. Apparently, the doe didn't like that the Inspector scared her baby, because she turned and stared down the Inspector. He just sat there, blandly staring back. The doe stomped her foot. 

Watching all this from inside, Mom got uneasy. Female deer may not have antlers, but they weight a couple hundred pounds and this doe could certainly inflict damage to Inspector with sharp hoofs and strong kicks. It would take her only a second to leap that 4-foot fence, too. As he continued to sit and silently stare at the doe, Mom went outside.

The doe stomped her foot again. This time, Mom stomped hers! The deer looked up, confused. Before the deer could do it again, Mom shouted, "Alright, you go take care of your baby and I'll take care of mine!" At the sound of her voice, the doe shied and trotted over to her fawn, still in the yard next door. Mom grabbed Inspector's harness and hustled him inside. He didn't protest and seemed completely unaware of the danger he'd been in.

It's darned near impossible to tell one deer from another, but Mom says that the next day she saw a doe with a fawn surveying the fenced part of the yard as if making sure that the long, low, woofing creature wasn't outside again. (And he wasn't---Inspector was inside, sprawled on the couch in the air conditioning.)

Auntie Anne