Had a visitor last night...

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Errant_Venture

I'm the space cowboy.
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So, some of you might know, I work in retail management. That means I get home late a lot. Last night, I got home, and offered to walk the dog for my wife, at around 11:30 PM. So, we're outside, and I'm walking the dog, and in a moment of disregard, I left my firearm inside when I got home. So I'm sitting outside with nothing more than a 1.5 inch knife that is hidden inside of my pen, and I hear rustling sounds from the forest behind the building.

I wasn't sure what it was at first, but it was getting closer. Now, my dog is a good protection dog, and I've trained him in a few commands, such as "Cease" which in our case means "sit your ass down and don't make a noise." So I'm waiting, and listening, and the sound gets closer. It was something like "rustle rustle.... rustle rustle..... rustle rustle." Two steps, two steps. Clearly bipedal. I pull out my phone, and calmly tell my wife to bring me my gun,which was sitting on the arm of the couch near the door. She, of course, proceeds to ask me a million questions, instead of just bringing me my pistol. As soon as I said, "Hey, could you bring me my gun from the couch" I hear the steps break off, which at the time had started "charging" through the underbrush towards me, and head diagonal, along the line of the trees, away from us, and then I guess whoever it was broke from the treeline, because it stopped.

I don't mind saying, due to the time of night, and my very meager protection, I had a pretty good adrenaline rush going. The moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen... don't let your guard down like I did. Also, coincidentally, communicate with your spouses that if you ever need anything, or they ever need anything, regarding protection, to save any unnecessary questions for LATER.

Hopefully, having learned these in a mostly harmless situation will benefit me later.
 
Gun, knife, light anytime I'm wearing pants.
In what area do you live?
 
Let me see if I understand this correctly. You go outside to walk the dog and HEAR something but never SEE anything and you feel you need a gun to deal with this UNSEEN threat so you call your wife to bring you a gun. If she was close enough to bring you a gun why not just go back home and avoid the unseen attacker?? Hell, it could have been Big Foot for all you know....
 
Bailey Boat;93259 said:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. You go outside to walk the dog and HEAR something but never SEE anything and you feel you need a gun to deal with this UNSEEN threat so you call your wife to bring you a gun. If she was close enough to bring you a gun why not just go back home and avoid the unseen attacker?? Hell, it could have been Big Foot for all you know....
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I was gonna ask the same thing but thought it might have been way too simple a solution.

Also, one cool thing about dogs is they're pretty good at sniffing out danger before it gets close but it sounds like the dog was calm in this story. Even one trained to sit should show some sign of anxiety if there was a possible threat at hand. Reminds me of the time the wife called me saying she heard a strange noise. I asked her what the do was doing and she said he was lying on the floor he was lying on the floor doing nothing. I told her that was her sign it was nothing to worry about.

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How do you know it was charging at you if you never saw it?

That said, always carry when out like that. Had an angry dog approaching the other night while out walking the pup. Hand on the pistol as I backpedaled to the door with the dog. Never drew, just kept hand on in case.
 
Wahoo95;n93266 said:
I was gonna ask the same thing but thought it might have been way too simple a solution.

Also, one cool thing about dogs is they're pretty good at sniffing out danger before it gets close but it sounds like the dog was calm in this story. Even one trained to sit should show some sign of anxiety if there was a possible threat at hand. Reminds me of the time the wife called me saying she heard a strange noise. I asked her what the do was doing and she said he was lying on the floor he was lying on the floor doing nothing. I told her that was her sign it was nothing to worry about.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

An alert dog is better than any alarm system going today. You've been around Lucy, easy going, loves everyone, rarely gets upset about anything but when I take her into the back yard before bedtime she let's me know if all is okay to proceed. Any hesitation on her part tells me something isn't right, it may be the neighbor's cat or it could be Seal Team 6 hiding in the darkness waiting to ambush me......
 
In my semi expert hunting opinion, bipeds rarely just take 2 steps. But who knows.
 
Squirrels and rabbits in my experience tend toward that exact noise in the dark in leaves.
"Rustle, rustle, pause".
"Rustle, rustle, pause".
"Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle, pause"
"rustle, wait somethings there?!"
"rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle" away from you.

can be unsettling as it sounds like a person taking two steps then stopping but it's always a critter.

in my limited experience. An actual biped in the dark, in the woods either doesn't know your there and makes consistent noises while they move. Know your there and move away. Or creepily move from cover to cover for whatever their intention may be. Cover is rarely,if ever two steps away. My office was in a bad neighborhood and I worked a lot of nights so I've experienced all of this including burglars, crack heads and the like. I got my ccw after the first month of this.. Always keep something on hand for defense.

Even the dumbest, most useless dog has a pretty keen sense of actual danger. Even the yippy, bark at everything ones have a noticeable change when they sense something dangerous.







Don't think I used "experience" enough so.....

experience, experience, experience, experience, experience, experience, experience, experience:)
 
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Errant_Venture;n93207 said:
Hopefully, having learned these in a mostly harmless situation will benefit me later.
Click to expand...

Glad it all worked out for you and no harm done while caring for yourself and family.
 
It could be a lot of things. All I can say to that, is that I've been in the woods all my life, in a lot of different places. If it sounds like a person, moves like a person, and reacts to the things you do the way a person reacts, I'm going to assume it's a person. If it's nothing, I'm fine, and I'm not afraid of most animals in a city. I've been close enough to bears, boars, and all manner of critters, and none of them, in any situation, set off alarm triggers like this did, and the only time I saw anything was when they broke through the other side of the brush. A dark splotch of grey doesn't count for much, but I can tell you there aren't many person sized creatures that roam around Hickory, NC.

Last year, they had the police down in this exact same area for people traveling through here, and we've had no less than four shootings in a mile and a half radius around this area. So... maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm not spooked easily.
 
Woods noises are funny. When I am up at our mountain place alone my ears are on high alert. I hear all sorts of things. It is really funny when I locate a noise and it is the neighbors dog, a squirrel or the dreaded chipmunk! At night I can't always find out what it is. Usually it is a deer, but at some point I'm sure something else will either scare the crap out of me or eat me. Better safe than sorry. Guess that is why I usually have something that shoots big bullets on my hip up there.

My money is still on chupacabra though. They are probably pissed about the border wall. Might cut down on the Texas cattle they eat.
 
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