Cougar

[webfoot]

Last night about 7:00 I stepped up to the front door to shut off the porch light. A critter stepped into view between the house and fence. Went out the sidewalk gate. Just in view for a second or two. I hadn't ever seen something that matched the description. Moved like a cat but too big to be a house cat. About the size or a coyote but not furred like a coyote. A longish tail but not bushy like a fox or coyote. I went over and over in my head what it could be. I thought could it be a baby mountain lion. Googled it. A 6 month old lion weighs about 30 pounds and is about 2.5 feet long excluding the tail. I think I have a winner. If you can call having a mountain lion 20 feet from the front door a winner. I wish we would have had the snow on the ground then. Tracks would tell the story.

 

[Puzzled]

I got to hold a cougar kitten once, it definitely wasn't as big as Dave's visitor. It was bigger than a big house cat.
It started wrestling with my arm and chewing on my hand. I held really still and it finally turned me lose and let me go.

 

[Faster horses]

A bit of changing the subject:
When I was a kid, some neighbors had a lynx cat. I learned the difference between a bobcat and a lynx from that.
Now that I write this, I wonder how they had that lynx cat. Laws today wouldn't allow it. That was back in the 50's.

 

[Puzzled]

They probably didn't ask if a pet Lynx was okay.
I have pictures of a bobcat on a chain that my Great Uncle had, along with an orphan fawn.
This would have been in the 40's or before. Either way before my time.

 

[jodywy]

SIL runs a trap line, Tenny was casing two bob cats yesterday. This picture, was little over 3 years ago, Tenny was pregnant they chased a Cat all day, it got into Cyclone got the dogs of it onto this smaller cat.

 

[Puzzled]

SIL runs a trap line, Tenny was casing two bob cats yesterday. This picture, was little over 3 years ago, Tenny was pregnant they chased a Cat all day, it got into Cyclone got the dogs of it onto this smaller cat. View attachment 3411

That is so perfect. The last hound I had was a Black and Tan, I purchased as a pup out of Montana.
She too would tree the long tails.

 

[webfoot]

Back in January 2022 my neighbor called right after we got home from church. He said he had the stupidest cougar in the world in the tree closest to his house. His dogs were barking. He yelled at them to shut up. They didn't so he looked out the door. His Border Collies had a cougar up the tree.

 

[deff]

I switched to hound dogs years ago when I use to coon hunt and discovered that my cows became a lot less kicky for working afoot without the ankle-biters around. I still have a hound that patrols the farmstead and helps keep my free range chickens safer. We have an old "milkcow pasture" where we turn the late calvers out in the spring. One year, when we gathered them to brand we came up short several calves. That fall, when we weaned, the calves smashed out of the lot several times. My bluetick has an ongoing feud with a neighbor's barn cat so I tend to ignore the baying outside each morning, so it was a bit embarrassing when a neghbor knocked at my door and asked if he could shoot the lion my hound had treed in the yard! Problem solved!

 

[Faster horses]

Those big cats are some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet.