The beautiful Juliette before...In a business is like mine there is a lot of conversation with clients about "the coyote problem." In my experience, though, it's unusual to have much proof that coyotes took the pet.We were called last week on an unusual case in Dallas where the owner had awakened to see two coyotes had her cat cornered on her patio at 4 am. She tried to scare the coyotes away but ended up scaring the cat away, too, with the coyotes in hot pursuit.
She said she didn't hear any signs of struggle so had a slim hope that her cat might have gotten away from them. She was so surprised to find out that there were "coyotes right in the city." The area behind her condo was an extremely steep ravine with a creek at the bottom...huge trees, a lot of brambles and vines. To the left of her patio (the direction the three had run) were other condos and lots of good hiding places under decks, etc.
My dog Murphy was able to find one or more cats hiding under these decks, so our hopes swelled that this cat might be under there too. Alas, I felt compelled to search the ravine area before we left and within 1 minute Murphy found the remains of the beautiful cat. I wouldn't even have recognized her...I was looking for a white cat but needless to say she was hardly recognizable. Only the head and front paws remained and they were so caked with mud, I wouldn't have noticed them without the dog's help.
It was a grim find but I was glad to bring closure to a client who was the type to search for weeks and months if we hadn't gotten this evidence.When I saw the destroyed cat, I called to the client. She came down into the woods and identified the body by turning the head over so she could see the facial features. Then I took Murphy back to the car and gave him every treat I had in there, got a plastic bag and put all that was left of the cat in the bag. I took the bag up to the patio and sat there with the client for about an hour until she calmed down a bit.I think it went okay, all things considered, but I came away wondering if I'd handled it quite right...maybe I should have walked back up and explained what I found...I don't know...does anybody have a better idea?
Anyway, I was so proud of my dog...he really did his job on this one. It's hard to accept money from clients when things turn out as bad as this one did. My husband John, while I was debating about depositing the client's check, said "I'm sure the undertaker feels a little bit bad each time he digs a grave, but he collects the money just the same."
