While they all looked like they had the potential for tracks I rarely found what appeared to be three toes and when I did I couldn't find a track anywhere around it that had been the other foot or the step before or after so unlikely. The hardest part was all the landscape was the same and for awhile I wasn't sure where I was. Then I found this. I called it the Brickyard and started finding my direction around where the Brickyard was using it as my reference point. 
Then I found this area about 100 feet long where all the rocks were white. 
Then I come across an area full of rocks piled on top of each other which I started calling Stonehenge. Now I've got some landmarks to work with while looking for the dino footprints. However, there's a new element. Though I haven't heard or seen any signs of people the whole day something or somebody is following me. I've heard slight noises behind me several times but never saw anyone. So in my search I'm doing circles where I can come back in on my previous trail. 
To make the odd day nearly complete I find a black rock. If you scrape the rock even slightly, it changes color. It's as if the whole rock got was dipped in something but just the shallowest fluid clung to it. Underneath you can see the color change. 
This is my track just now coming on my tracks earlier in the day which are being followed by a pad, four toes, and toe nails. That narrows it down to five critters. Red fox, we don't have any. Gray fox, but the back foot would be stepping in the front foot and that didn't happen. Wolf, we don't have any. Coyote, too small and pad not shaped right. Dog. One of the cattle dogs is following me without being seen. This track is fresh. There are tracks from a few days ago and tracks from longer than a week ago. It lives here.
3 comments:
Would it be right to carry some dog treats?
I don't know next time I'm going up there but I will. I suspect it follows hikers and bikers around on the Cpt Ahab trail and gets anything they leave. I don't know if the cattle dog knew it was me from eating on the front porch or if I was just another hiker up there. Got bad weather for the next two days. Picking up Linny for awhile so might be the holidays before I get up there again. I'm charging my solar lights from out front right now to put more lights out by the food bowl and maybe spend a night sleeping in the office so every time I hear cat food crunching I can look up and see if any of them are the cattle dog(s). I could never get Hurrah to come to me when he was barely wild so a year out here on his own I have almost no chance of bringing it back but I'm sure it knows how to get here. It could even be somebody that was hiking up there and their dog ran off but from the stride of the steps I'd say it's cattle dog size.
Another animal saga. Hope you see who it is and make friends.
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