The Mangy Coyote

I have shared before that I see a lot of animals on my run along ‘Dave’s Trail’ and that while the southwest desert is teeming with life it is a harsh environment. Rather severe and cruel for the runner that wants to run for an hour in liquifying 105+ degree temperature, but that is for a scant one hour. The residents of this landscape will endure temperatures from the teens to 117 degrees. Add a few sizzling degrees nearer the oven that is the Phoenix area.

The photo above is a visitor to your neighborhood who wandered through our yard during the furnance month of August in 2019. That summer I would have five or six encounters with this poor coyote while out on my runs, or sitting within my bedroom. I have no idea what this creature is enduring, but something is obviously affecting the well being of this animal. It appears to be something beyond the heat, starvation, or malnutrition. Possibly a disease.

When I first saw the mangy coyote, I did see a second coyote in the vicinity, but this was the only sighting that he or she was not alone. I would encounter him/her along the same area of my loop and I was always interested and slightly saddened when our paths crossed.

Our ‘visits’ were rather brief, but the coyote was always calm and appeared interested in the human with the camera. Yes, I probably should have been warier of a creature that could transmit some ugly disease with a bite and an animal that may be unstable mentally. I do know the toll of my own disease, type 1 diabetes, and do not need an additional disease in my arsenal, but I was curious and did not feel threatened in any way.

The first number of photos I snapped, I thought that I might have come across an animal that was not a regular inhabitant of our neck of the woods. Its condition had so greatly affected its appearance.

The photos taken from the safe confines of my bedroom would be the last time I would see the coyote. I did not anticipate a long life for the suffering animal, but I did have a somewhat grateful feeling each time our journey through the desert had us starring at each other.