FEATURE — My brother’s dog got into a tussle with a mountain lion on Sunday. It couldn’t have been much of a fight, or the dog wouldn’t have survived. She’s tough. But not that tough.
Whatever it was, there was enough of something to leave two puncture marks on her neck, force her in hiding for forty-eight hours and then keep her cowering in my brother’s yurt for many days more.
This all happened in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California where my brother owns a piece of wild land that he uses as a home base for surfing in the Pacific. It may well become his permanent home at some point. But for now, it’s his weekend getaway from his slightly less wild place in California’s Grass Valley.
There is a drainage ditch somewhere behind his plot, within earshot of his yurt, where he’s noticed animal tracks. He figures it’s a regular path to water for the bobcats, foxes, coyotes, deer, turkeys, and mountain lions that surely live there.
He heard some rough noises and a short scuffle Sunday night near the drainage ditch and when he couldn’t find his dog Smokie, he feared the worst.
When she finally returned after the two days in hiding, my brother tried to suss out what happened. He did a full health assessment of the dog and investigated her surprisingly few injuries. Then, he listened to recorded animal sounds on his phone for matches to what he’d heard that night.
He played the plaintive howl of the coyote. He played the high-pitched scream of the fox and the lower register scream of the bobcat. Nothing.
Then, he played the throaty yowl of the mountain lion and Smokie hit the ground, cowering with her ears pinned flat against her head and her tail nearly tucked up inside of her. Bingo.
His mountain lion suspicion confirmed, he looked at Smokie and could only marvel at her good fortune. She had already survived being swatted by a bear and nicked by a car. And now, she has survived a mountain lion. Like I said, she and my brother live in wild places.
It’s likely that Smokie stumbled on the mountain lion while they were both looking for water and she scared it. Had the latter been truly hunting her, Smokie wouldn’t have survived.
As my brother relayed the tale to me over the phone, I couldn’t help but think of the Colosseum in Rome. I know, a seemingly weird association.
But it makes sense considering I was just at the Colosseum last week. And considering what I learned there. I’d always known that gladiators fought in the storied Roman relic. I’d known those battles were bloody. And I’d known they were for sport in front of a large, eager crowd.
However, what I hadn’t known before I walked among its marbled seats and weaved through its brick and stone underground tunnels with hand-cranked elevators, is that the gladiators were only one part of the day-long shows.
Before the gladiators battled, fighting for their lives with the likes of spears and tridents, two other types of shows took place in the sand arena: animal vs. animal and animal vs. man.
The animal vs. man iteration was two-fold; one was a method of execution for non-Roman criminals, and one was a hunt. The hunt typically involved an armed and skilled hunter stalking prey – like elephants, lions, monkeys, crocs and cheetahs – on the floors of the arena that had been transformed into the animal’s natural habitat, replete with scenery and live animals.
The execution would involve a bear, wild boar or big cat theatrically appearing through a trapdoor in the floor and then mauling the terrified criminal to death.
Sidenote: Roman citizens were granted the mercy of beheading if they were sentenced to die. But I digress.
Before all of that, the Romans pitted animals against each other on the floors of the Colosseum and watched them fight to the death. Big cat vs. big cat. Bear vs. boar. Or whatever other iteration they fancied.
As amazed as I was to be in walking through the tunnels of history and as impressive as the actual structure and engineering was – and it was impressive – while there, I was also hit by an overwhelming sadness at the tunnels of suffering the Colosseum also housed.
The suffering of humans. The suffering of animals. The suffering even of the spectators. Because who couldn’t have been affected in some deep way by watching all that violence? Even if they didn’t register it.
Back on the phone with my brother, I was grateful to be away from the Colosseum and to be cheering a different animal fate – one with some luck, great joy and a reminder of how tenuous life really is.
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