Terracotta Park, Pointe Claire, Quebec ©voyager, all rights reserved
This photo was taken in a place called Terracotta Natural Park and it’s right in the heart of Pointe Claire. It’s a huge park (almost 100 acres) with lots of connecting and well maintained trails. It’s one of Jack’s favorite places to go, but unlike our woods at home I won’t allow my boy off-leash here because of the threat of coyotes. We’ve never seen one ourselves, but there are signs posted at every entrance to the park advising extreme caution and noting that they’ve been spotted in the area. My husband grew up near the park and we’ve been taking our dogs to it for about 15 years and this is the first time we’ve seen such warnings. That probably means there’s an established population of coyotes. And why not? The park is exactly like their natural environment and it’s filled with their natural prey plus it has the added bonus of human leavings. As their environments shrink or die all animals, including large predators, will move ever closer to populated areas just trying to eke out a life and avoid extinction. I think they have as much right to the land as we do. Maybe more. At least they’re not destroying the planet.
A lovely path. There seems to be a brook that’s dry.
Coyotes are interesting because they are one animal that is actually gaining territory whereas for most they are losing it. Coyotes are intelligent and versatile and able to cope with a lot of different things, change their diet etc.
They totally will kill and eat dogs. I have a neighbor who raises Australian Shepherds and they got one of her dog isolated and killed within about 10 minutes one day, when she was out walking with that dog. So yes please, do be careful. It hurts nothing and no one to keep Jack on a leash and Jack will be far safer with you than out on his own when coyotes are around.
That pathway looks so inviting! I wish I could go walk on it right now…
I don’t know why, but I love seeing stairs in the woods.
Ice Swimmer,
The brook is actually an engineered drain for storm runoff.
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kestrel,
That’s horrible. Jack’s best friend is mostly Australian Shepherd and he’s fast and and fairly big.
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Joseph,
I agree. Stairs in the woods just seem to invite you forward.
It does look inan inviting path. I had no idea coyotes would take dogs, the worst a dog in the UK could face would be adders. As dogs tend to get bitten on the face there can be airway problems, but even then not very dangerous unless you ignore the bite or don’t realise it has happened. Besides there aren’t that many places with adders.