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On the second day of new year, January’s Wolf moon had nearly dipped behind the ranges as I stepped out for my early morning walk. I had descendants of the wolf on my mind as I skirted the area I normally walk through, in favour of a, hopefully, safer one. The previous morning my husband and his mates saw five–five dingoes rolling and frolicking in the grass on the 6th Fairway, about 12 minutes’ walk from our house and about a third of the way along my normal route. In the past we have seen two or three at a time, but never five. So, while I was walking I stopped the dog walkers alerting them to the situation. There have been two incidents that I know of a couple of years ago; one with a lady I know who was stalked by three dingoes while she was walking her tiny little mouthful of a dog, and another where the dingoes actually got into a neighbour’s yard and helped themselves to a tiny little canine entrée.
Wild Dingoes on the fairway in front of our house
Dingoes are gorgeous creatures but they are a nuisance in an urban setting. The area where we live is between the golf course and the bush so it is a difficult place for the Rangers to patrol—very easy for the dogs to slip through to the scrub and go undetected. The dingoes are protected so would only be caught and relocated, which is good, but first they must be caught.
Last year during my time away from blogging, a friend sent me a notice about a writing competition in a nice magazine here in Australia. Just to exercise my writing muscle, I entered. It is intimidating to know where to start when one has such a wide scope for subject matter. I finally settled on a reworked post from this blog since the article was to be something that exhibited Australian life. It was about previous encounters I’ve had with the dingoes –you might like to read the entry here– the dingo and the light chaser. It was not selected for the magazine, but I’m sure they received many pieces and who ever knows what judges are looking for in these things? And it might just be crap, I don’t know. It’s important to keep one’s perspective about why we write so that our fragile egos are not too damaged. As you can see, I’m undaunted.
Just after sending the entry, I was laying on the sofa in the dark one morning, waiting for it to be light enough to walk. (I sometimes wake up at ridiculous hours) Out of the pre-dawn came a chorus I will never forget. The family of dingoes must have been within metres of our house as they began their serenade. It was obvious there were younger, higher pitched voices mixed with the more experienced, deeper ones, practicing their howling skills. It lasted maybe ten or fifteen seconds. I peered into the darkness. Couldn’t see a thing. But they were there.
Again, the day after I began writing this piece, an adult dingo was within metres of our house, sniffing through the fence at the little white yapping morsel next door. If I was cruel I would wish the dingo bon appétit. The entire neighbourhood bristled to life with workmen jumping down from their scaffolds to watch and neighbourhood dogs announcing the dingo’s journey as it moved, unhurried, along its way, into the rocky outcrops and relative safety.
ardysez 
Your experiences with the dingoes are not so different than what we experience here with the coyotes. For several months now, I have ventured out with Mr. T and Oscar to do their morning business before daylight, and my flashlight catches coyotes running from out pasture to the woods. The pasture runs along a street, and also along an alley! I have no idea why they are camping out in our pasture (just a few yards from our house). I wonder if they jump the fences and go into town at night, or if they hunt for varmints, or perhaps hope to find a way into our chicken barn. All I know is I do not feel safe with my two little dogs when I see the coyotes run.
I do not worry about being stalked by them as I work in the woods, or when I walk to the river. All animals I have ever encountered, turn to run on seeing a human. The only mammal I worry about on walks would be a wild hog. A sow could be a formidable force if she had piglets nearby.
Be safe, my friend. By the way, I enjoyed, “The dingo and the Light Chaser”.
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I was thinking about the coyote situation there in the US as I wrote this, it is very similar. The main reason I worry about the dingoes is because of the pack mentality, five of them all at once presents a problem–one or two, not so much. Thank you for reading The dingo and the Light Chaser too. Take care Lori. x
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Ardys dearHeart – you so correctly say that dingoes are ‘gorgeous’ but a nuisance ‘in an urban setting’ . . . well, Milady, Alice Springs is sort’of in the middle of the Never-Never, is it not 🙂 ? You may have a fine looking man-made golf course fronting your home but I do not think these beautiful wild critters can differentiate twixt a fairway and its adjoining bush . . . you are on their territory and, in a way have to take a step back. That said, I would feel quite strange looking out of my lounge room window and listening to their Aboriginal chant . . . . . Oh, and your heat will have reached us by tomorrow: not quite used to 44C, especially with no AC 🙂 !
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Of course you are correct that Alice is in the middle of the Outback and as such is vulnerable to the older ways of Mother Nature. I guess what is strange is that we have been here for 26 years and for over 20 years we never ever saw a dingo, so we got used to being without them. I think they are probably here to stay, and have adapted to the Urban invasion, much the same as the kangaroos, so we will just have to get used to it. I’m sorry you are getting the heat too. We are in for a week of 40+ temps again, but we do have air conditioning, and as of today, ours even works!! We had a very hot couple of weeks over Christmas 😦
Thank you Eha x
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Very creative, Ardys. I love how you describe little dogs as morsels and mouthfuls although at the same time I know it is awful what may happen to those unsuspecting pets. The dingos are beautiful – from a distance. Wild is wild and it should be respected and treated with caution.
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Thank you Debi. The little animals, and some quite a bit bigger roos and wallabies are in fact food for the dingoes. I’ve seen quite a few grisly carcasses that the dingoes have dispatched, and they were nearly as big as I am, since I’m not very big! Yes, wild is wild. Thank you Debi. x
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Ah, I’m so glad you linked your light short story. I read, as you probably did, the winning entries of that competition and they were so…same same… as I could have read in any publication inclined to harbour pop-fiction. That which your shared is a delightful & insightful cameo of outback urban life and allegory.
Your dingo neighbours intrigue me… from afar. Although in occasion I have been followed by a dingo and a dingo-x. Iconic and daunting in equal measure. A dog but more, to be sure.
I laughed, guiltily, at your description of morsels and entrees. On a standalone basis I like all dogs but generically what are referred to in this household as ‘handbag dogs’; the desire for, I just don’t get. An unfortunate and sad situation for all parties.
But, for all their behaviours that don’t complement urbanization and its attractions, I’m happy the dingoes have legal status and the relative safety of their natural habitat.
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Thank you so much Dale. Yes, the winning entries of the magazine were a little predictable but I’m used to these sorts of outcomes when entering art into competitions, so it didn’t phase me, really. Having judged a few myself, I’m also aware that one can only judge things based on one’s own experiences, plus there has to be agreement with others too. I don’t actually put much store in them. It was a fun exercise though. It was a little devilish of me to describe the neighbourhood dogs as ‘cuisine’, I know. Actually I would not be the least bit sorry if the one next door was taken. I’ve lost count of the nights of sleep we have lost over its yapping, not to mention time I’ve taken to report them to the Ranger. People who leave a dog to bark like that one don’t deserve to have one.
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You may already know to/do this but keep a written diary record of the barking. I once lived in a suburban situation, similarly, to be advised by ranger and animal welfare group that the particular animal’s situation was adequate. A word and circumstance I detest with a passion. Our attention, where possible, is better directed at enlightening the owner ♡
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Yes, I’ve done this on two occasions. It seems so wrong that the onus is on the victim rather than the owner of the badly behaved dog. They have put a barking collar with citronella spray on the dog, which was removed by the owner. Later they finally did start blocking the doggie door so the dog couldn’t get out at night, which helped, but of course because it requires human intervention is somewhat unreliable. This particular neighbour is not very approachable 😦
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Here some nearly 10,000 miles away
we do not have dingoes in the Low Country of South Carolina…but we do
have coyotes! More stealthy than the
gregarious dingoes when they encounter humankind they are gone in
a flash. They turn tail and “poof!”
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I wonder what the coyotes are thinking of the snow in SC at the moment? That might be a strange one for them to figure out! Thanks for reading Mel.
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hahaha! when my bigger than morsels but still not big dogs were puppies, they used to stand on their back legs and work very convincingly at scaring off the urban foxes, we don’t have wild dogs. It was a sight to see, tiny puppy yipping away at an animal ten times its size 🙂 The foxes distinguish between dogs on leads, who they stalk along the streets and tease, and loose dogs, one of the reasons they do so well I think. They eat all sorts I am told, from worms, to bulbs, to chickens that are not well protected, and of course, people who don’t have pets feed them at the door, so they are not very frightened of humans. They don’t run in packs though, preferring a solitary life style apart from when they are raising kits. Very different from the fairway dingoes as a species. I think you are very brave sending in pieces to magazines, and I love your writing and your voice steady and clear and indisputably yourss….my father always says, send your poems in to me, get published, but I never have. x Jo
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Thank you so much for your lovely compliments of my writing, Jo. One cannot judge one’s own work very well. In fact I wonder if we can judge creative things at all sometimes, except from a very subjective way. Wow, foxes that get fed and are not afraid of humans is interesting. We do see the occasional fox here, or what we think is a fox. Mostly they are in the southern states. The dingoes are quite wild in their behaviours of hunting in packs and stalking, so I give them a wide berth.
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Your dingos are our coyotes! Scary animals.
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When I grew up in Ohio, we never heard or saw a coyote. I only knew of them in the ‘West’, mostly when I lived in Denver and used to visit Wyoming a fair bit. But a few years ago when visiting family in Ohio we heard the coyotes howling one evening and I could scarcely believe it. Everyone started telling us how common they are there now. Not something I expected to change, but Mother Nature is unpredictable. I do have to wonder if the proliferation of deer as a reliable food source for them has had something to do with it. Deer were not that common when we were growing up there either. Thanks for reading and commenting Linda.
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I love your world…a place I can only read about, for visiting will probably never happen. 🙂
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When we lived in North America, we would often hear the howl of the coyotes. But, to me the Dingo howl is more like the Norther European Wolf. Alluring in its sound, but daunting at the same time. For me a coyote is like listening to Alice Cooper, where as dingoes and wolfs are like listening to Bocelli. With that said, I prefer to keep a respectable distance from all.
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What little exposure I’ve had to coyote and dingo howls, I would agree with you, Ron. The coyote howls I’ve heard were not as musical sounding as the dingo howls I’ve heard. Perhaps that varies depending on why they are howling, I don’t know. I’m with you, a respectable distance is my preferred position. Thanks for adding your very interesting comment.
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