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Growing up in the mountains of Idaho, at about 4,000′ altitude, we were fairly familiar with the native wildlife. Had a lot of trouble with a lynx that wanted my dog or my cats and kittens for dinner. My dog had an escape route where he was safe, and the cats holed up in the attic of the woodshed. Finally shot the lynx one night, and never had further trouble, so it was just the one persistent one.
I had a lot of interest in my post about cougars. City people are not familiar with American wildlife. But then the wildlife in different parts of the country is very different. I cannot imagine living where alligators are common! Cougars are not common on the East Coast, but the big cats do travel great distances and there have been sightings. You can check with your state wildlife department to find out what is common in your area if you don’t know.
I Heard a cougar scream fairly often, growing up. It is a chilling sound, like a woman screaming in total agony. Never saw one. The other common wild cats are the bobcat, a much smaller animal and the lynx. Lots of photos online if you are interested. We had Lots of coyotes, never seen. but often heard. Bears, never seen, turned up when a crabapple tree on the back 40 ripened. Never saw any bears either, just their scat. They really liked the crabapples. The rest of the year they vanished into the National Forest which abutted our property. Skunks, occasionally, but they were fortunately shy. Porcupines were a more serious problem. The dogs always attacked them, to their grief, and we’d have long sessions extracting porcupine needles. The dogs never, never learned. I grew up with St. Bernards. but a smaller dog in later years, half shepherd, half spaniel which we called a “spanard”and named “Franco” after Franco American Spaghetti. O.K. that’s dumb. want to compare dog names?
I’m currently dogless, and have just one cat.
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American Elephants 
I currently have two beagles, from the same litter, boy and girl, named Linus and Lucy.
Growing up, we had a beagle named after a bumblebee she was playing with, until she found out bumblebees don’t like being played with. Her name was Herbee.
We also had a cat, a siamese mix, named Hey Cat, because that was all you ever said to it. It attacked a neighborhood German Shepherd one day because it was charging at some kids. Terrible, terrible… watching the dog run away, whimpering, while Hey Cat sat calmly, locking his foresaw (he had almost taken the dog’s ear off). Very protective of his humans.
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Comment by Lon Mead April 19, 2022 @ 10:19 pmWhen next I get a dog, undoubtedly a Lab, you will hear from me ! You are obviously unusually good at animal names~ Love it!!
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Comment by The Elephant's Child April 20, 2022 @ 2:58 pm