One day I watched some fat, happy puppies amusing themselves. They played, but without much pep, while mothers remained near to guard and to admire.
Prairie dogs often play. But never, I think, alone like the grizzly. In groups and in hundreds they played the universal game of tag. They were fat and low-geared and their running gallop made an amusing effort to get somewhere. There were several boxing exhibitions, or farces. Their fat bodies and extremely short legs and slow, awkward movement made their efforts more ludicrous even than those of fat men boxers. There was a kind of snake dance with entangled countermarching in which most dogs tried to be dignified while many acted as though in new company and did not know what was expected of them.
One of their plays consisted in a single dog mimicking a stranger or an enemy. A bunch of dogs acted as spectators while an old dog highly entertained them by impersonating a coyote, at least his exhibition reminded me very much of coyote. The old dog imitated the coyote’s progress through dog town, with the usual turning, looking, smelling, and stopping. He looked into holes, rolled over, bayed at the heavens, and even tried the three-legged gallop. During most of his stunts the spectators were silent but toward the last he was applauded with violent cursings and denunciation--at least so it sounded. A number of other folks were imitated, but just who they were my natural history and the actor’s presentation gave no clue. Apparently the skunk was imitated. The actor’s interpretation was good. The congested audience watched him closely, with now and then a yip, but mostly in silence.
But sometimes there are less peaceful scenes in dog town. A dog town without a coyote would be like Hades without Mephistopheles.
The prairie dog likes to keep close to his hole, or to the hole of a neighbour into which he can duck and escape the surprise raids of the coyote.
The coyote stalks patiently, hiding until a dog comes close or is too far from his hole to outrun the coyote to it. Coyotes hunt in pairs or fours and often while one, two, or three of them are holding the attention of the dogs the other coyote makes a sudden dash. Sometimes they take sheer delight in stirring up things in congested corners of dog town.