Agressive Javelina's Charging At My Dogs Through the Fence -Video

Here in Arizona you are familiar with the nasty critters to watch out for and avoid such as rattle snakes and scorpions.  Another critter that we try to avoid is the Javelina, but in all my years of living here I didn't really consider them an extreme threat.  I have had them come right up to us to get a treat like a tossed strawberry (or stale cheerios in the case of my grandkids). I watch them each morning and evening as they make their way west then east in their daily travels.

Credit: Photo courtesy of the Arizona Daily Star

When I go out to my chicken run I sometimes find a group of Javelina's hanging out in the yard between the back door and the chicken run, but they will usually scatter as soon as they see and hear me coming.  The only time I hesitate approaching them is when they have new babies in their group.  They get very protective when they have little ones with them.  But even then, I have never had them get really aggressive with me, they just tend to stand their ground and expect me to give them extra time to disperse with their babies.

However this morning I was caught off guard by their aggression.  I looked through the window of the door before letting my dogs out into the fenced back patio and saw the Javelina's wondering around the backyard outside the fenced in area.  I opened the door and let the dogs out.  As is usual, the small dogs run to the fence barking frantically at the Javelina's and typically the Javelina's will scatter.  But today they did not.  They took a few steps away, then turned right around and came back towards the fence.  My puppy (8 mo old Rottweiler/SharPei) ran towards them but didn't bark, she wanted to play with them.  She jumped towards them and lowered her upper body like she does to instigate the dogs or cat to romp and play with her.  The Javelina's jumped towards her with their hock hair standing erect, huffing and snorting, clacking their sharp tusks in chomping motion as a threat to her.  Miss Hollywood was oblivious to any threat.

This was totally unusual behavior from what I have seen by Javelina's in my nearly 2 decades living here in Arizona.  I grabbed my video camera to record this because no one was home and I figured no one would believe they were acting so hostile this morning.  There were no babies in this group.  They all appeared to be full grown adults, perhaps they were all males so that sparked it. 

Watch (and listen to) the video below to see how they not only charged at Miss Hollywood, but also at my Boston Terrier Pickle as well.  One even tried to nip at Pickle through the fence (3/4 of the way through the video).  Note, Pickle only has one eye, so she has issues with depth perception...I don't think she thought the Javelina was that close.  There were about 5 or 6 of them circling around the fenced area.  They did not even seem to notice me, a human, standing right there video taping them.  -Scary! 

 

Keeper of 1 husband, 3 dogs,

3 cats, and 16 Chickens!

 

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