COLUMN: Down side of a nature walk

By Tobin Barnes
In the greater scheme of things, this incident, admittedly, is going to seem ridiculously trivial.

Nevertheless, for what it’s worth, here goes.

We live on the rim of Higgins Gulch here in the Black Hills, a nice scenic place to be with the gulch below and a good-sized mountain, Crow Peak, off in the distance. The rim is also a good place to take a walk. Although others have begun building houses in the area, enough nature is still out there to make it almost like a hike.

Sometimes we walk this together, sometimes we go alone, sometimes the neighbor dog goes with us. On this particular day in early June, my wife headed out with only the neighbor dog as companion.

This dog is a typical young pup, literally all over the place, and that, of course, is part of his charm, or any pup’s charm. He’s also one of the fastest dogs I’ve ever been around. This combination of goofiness and speed make him an entertaining walking companion.

My wife and the dog had gotten about halfway through the walk when, quick as a flash, and this is more fact than cliché, he was onto something and in attack mode.

When she came upon the scene, it wasn’t pretty. The dog had its jaws locked onto a little fawn that had been hiding in the tall grass. A couple times the fawn escaped, but the dog was too quick for it, quickly snapping it up again.

She tried to get in between the dog and the fawn when she could, but she and the fawn were no match for the dog. Finally, she decided that the only thing she could do was grab the dog by the collar and drag it away from the fawn. She was a good mile away from our house, but she knew she’d have to lead the dog by the collar the entire distance or it would go back after the fawn.

I was out in the yard when they arrived. Immediately, she wanted to drive back and do what she could for the fawn, despite the fact that she had seen blood.

We were both concerned about interfering with nature—are dogs part of the balance of nature?—but decided to at least check it out. I figured the best-case scenario would be the doe coming back for the fawn and leading it away out of our responsibility.

We put the dog temporarily in the garage to keep it from following us. My wife got some old towels, a bucket of water, and some gloves and stowed them in our pickup. She also brought her cell phone and phone book to call someone like State Game, Fish, and Parks, maybe—heck, we didn’t know. They probably get a lot of calls like that, and they probably always say the same thing.

There isn’t a direct road to the location of the attack, though, as I said, it’s only a mile or so away. We had to drive about six or seven miles to get there by road.

Once there, the fawn wasn’t where she had last seen it. We started looking around, myself hoping my doe retrieval theory had panned out.

But no, I saw something lying on this rocky outcropping and knew immediately what it was, the fawn. I called My wife over and we walked up together and immediately knew the verdict. The fawn was dead. It’s eyes were open, but the light was gone from them. They were glazed over.

I nudged it with my foot, hoping for some kind of Lazarus thing, but the fawn remained still. A little bit of blood showed on its belly, though more damage than that revealed had obviously been done.

It was smallest fawn I’d ever seen, not even any white spots yet.

All in all, it made for a scene of disturbing pathos for two people raised on Disney and not much involved with the harsher side of nature.

Of course, it wasn’t the dog’s fault. He was just doing what dogs do.

And I guess the fawn was playing its part, too. Victim. Much sooner than we would have liked.