Ravens

8/13/11

Grand Canyon

For those of you who haven’t met Mojo, he’s a pretty chill dog.  He’s a terrier mix and as such his genes are supposed to tell him to chase every little animal he sees, but whatever the strange concoction of breeds that came together to make up this pup must have canceled out the terrier’s natural tendency to chase small animals, because Mo has no interest.  He has never gone after cats or squirrels.  Our neighbors domestic bunny escaped over a year ago and has been living in the lavender bush in our front yard ever since, and Mojo just ignores him.  The only siblings that he’s ever had were three chickens, and they chased him and not the other way around.  OK, so you get it, Mojo doesn’t chase other animals.

 I realize the story I’m about to tell is ridiculous and perhaps pure coincidence, but I’ll tell it just how it happened.  So we got to our campsite and there were lot’s of ravens with their big-old beaks around.  Squawking in the trees, rummaging through the garbage left out at other campsites, and generally strutting around like thugs.  Tun and I started talking about our last experience with ravens.  Four years ago, when we moved out to Portland, we drove through Yellowstone and stopped to see Old Faithful.  We were driving the pickup truck we had at the time, with a U-Haul trailer behind it and our Triumph Bonneville in the truck bed.  After watching Old Faithful do her thing, we come back to the truck and there are two ravens sitting on the seat of the motorcycle, ripping into the leather with their beaks and pulling the stuffing out.  Some helpful tourists were watching and taking pictures of it all, apparently too caught up in the majestic natural behavior of the exotic raven to think of shooing them away and saving Bonnie’s seat.

Anyway, after reliving the memory, we turned to Mojo and in that annoying I’m-talking-to-either-a-baby-or-a-dog voice, said “Mojo, you need to protect Lucy from the ravens.  You’re in charge of campsite security tonight.”  Ha ha, we smile at ourselves for being cute.  Less than three minutes later, the raven that had been eying us from the other side of the road hopped over and came about 10 feet into our campsite.  As I lay on the mat, a brown blur of scruffy furry explodes behind me, jumps over me, and bears down on the raven, barking, growling, and raising up on his hind legs to make himself look bigger.  Oh, forgot to say, Mojo never growls and almost never barks.  The bird retreats about a hundred feet away.  This scene repeats itself another three times that night.  Mojo never leaves the campsite, but pours his heart into each performance until he reaches the camp’s boundary, then trots back to receive a petting for a job well done.  Chipmunks, squirrels, and small non-raven birds were permitted to come and go as they pleased while Mojo was on duty, as he hadn’t been charged with keeping them away.

After the fourth time, apparently word got out in the raven community that this dog means business, because there were no further attempts. 

Nevermore.