Large Canine Paw Print Found

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Must be a big shepherd to rival a wolf's paw print.

Cheers

I haven't seen either dog, not even pictures, but the big prints appeared a little smaller and well-defined in the fresh snow, as opposed to the spread caused in the muddy print from November.

I hadn't seen the boxer's prints before, but having had a boxer of our own, the print was familiar and it clicked as soon as I knew the neighbor had a boxer along with a shepherd. The two traveled together, mostly on the main trail, but they cut through the swamp without hesitation.

They traveled in low areas, out of sight, when not on the trails, also, we never saw them during the day, so I suspected a coyote mating pair. But once the neighbor's shared their tracking map, and that one was a boxer, it was obvious what was making those tracks.

Another thing, the fact that the prints never traveled the frozen creek bed downstream to the big swamp and river beyond was more evidence that this wasn't coyotes. Traveling the frozen waterways is the expected pattern for coyotes during the winter.

Then too is the fact that they went right up to the porch, ate some cat food, and didn't eat any cats was a dead give-away it wasn't coyotes. The feral cats are on the coyote's menu, we lose a couple every season. We shouldn't be feeding them, but they are becoming tamer and we will be able to wrangle most of them now to be "snipped and released", the best answer we have to the over crowded shelters in every county here abouts, other than target practice that is.