Our normal morning walk at o’dark thirty, 4:30am actually, started as always. Me trying to get the dogs and leashes under control. AJ will only walk on my left, Charlie and Orso don’t care which side they walk on as long as Orso is on the outside and Charlie is next to me. Orso and Charlie will switch from the left side to right multiple times during the walk almost always by crossing behind me causing me to have to juggle the leashes around to keep from getting yanked around from behind.
On this particular morning, the walk started off with our normal chaos, sniffing, peeing and snatching grass to munch on during the walk. But when we got to the long stretch of road that has no houses on either side, a ravine on the left and a wooded hill on the right with houses on the hilltop, the dogs discovered we weren’t alone. Something was keeping pace with us. The invisible stalker was up on the hill to our right. Orso discovered our stalker first, stopping and sniffing the air with his head held high, straining at the leash to get a closer sniff. Charlie soon caught a whiff and joined Orso straining at his leash too trying to get closer to whatever “It” was. I looked around in the gloom, but couldn’t see anything, I listened intently to try and catch any rustling sound to try and determine where and what was out there, but I didn’t hear anything. I tugged on their leashes to pull them away from the area and hopefully leaving the thing, whatever it was alone and hopefully leaving us alone too.
But no, our invisible stalker stayed with us, keeping pace staying high on the hill and being quite stealthy. The only giveaway was his scent which evidently was tantalizing to the dogs. Me not so much. I couldn’t smell, see or hear the stalker, so I was getting pretty unnerved trying to keep the dogs under control and alert to a possible threat. The rest of the walk was uneventful when we got past the dark stretch of road and back into the glow of the streetlights. Of course that was until Orso shook his head and I about jumped out of my skin. Just a little jittery, silly me.
A woman's view of hunting...with men 