Being hunted

Now I know what a fox feels like, or a deer, or whatever they hunt out there. Like Mag.

Ani was agitated when she arrived at our meeting place today. She said in her upset voice, "There's a hunt, we have to get out of here!" Since we meet near the trail head, "out of here" to me, meant, let's go to a completely different trail system so we won't end up in the hunt. But for some reason she thought we could avoid it if we rode our normal loop.


That was not the case.


     


As we made our way up, we saw an orange-clad hunter across the valley, and he waved at us in a friendly way. Which is odd because he should have been waving his arms at us and yelling for us to go back.

Suddenly we were in the middle of the hunt. It's called a Treibjagt* which means a bunch of hunters and their dogs spread out and make a lot of noise as they push their way across the landscape. I saw one hunter up ahead and I said, "We can't ride forward, we'll be in the middle of it!" (* - English/French "Battue" defined "the driving of game toward hunters by beaters." Does this even happen in America?)



     


The yelling was upsetting the horses, and the dogs were making a lot of noise too. One vested dog came running through the woods directly at us, only stopping when I yelled at it.

I convinced Ani we had to go back, not forward. She agreed, the hunters seemed to be everywhere.

At this point Mag was upset, but mostly bewildered and looking straight up the hill at all the racket. From the various directions he was staring, I could tell where they were.

Rudi started shaking in fear and spinning around so Ani jumped off. They started making their way back the way we came and I followed with Mag. Ani kept saying Scheisse over and over, and her voice had that high edge as she complained about how they're ruining her ride. She repeatedly said, "I'm going to ride in the arena." I was bitterly silent most of the time, angry and frightened, both.

Mag was fine until suddenly he wasn't. He spun around me, shaking, looking back toward where we were. He refused to walk with me, instead he trotted sidways behind me, craning his neck or simply spinning around to watch back there. He was afraid to face the direction we were going.

I yelled at him to quit it and his reply was to rear up. He was desperate to get away from there.

Meanwhile Ani was getting further and further away, almost out of sight. Later I realized Rudi was rushing to get out of there, even though she seemed to be simply walking. At the time I was pissed that she was, again, leaving us to fend for ourselves in a scary situation.

The non-stop barking was getting louder.


     


It went on for a while like this, with Mag prancing sideways looking back, snorting the entire time. I was fine for a while but then it seemed as if the hunters were truly pressing in on us. I mean, they were, but we couldn't see them, just hear them.

Then I felt this wave of pure panic. My entire body flooded with adrenaline and I was shaking. It was as if Mag suddenly showed me inside his mind and I was the one being hunted.

I walked as fast as I could through the slippery mud and panted my way up the hills. I was escaping and Mag seemed relieved about it. He stopped shaking. I remember that, but not much else about that part. I think he was just walking behind me normally. The feeling of being hunted was overwhelming - maybe I watch too many scary movies but I knew what it was to be prey.

It's annoying because I had the notion that I could use this as a training opportunity and just hang out with Mag and let him learn that people shoot guns, it happens. But that notion evaporated when I found myself fleeing for my life, heart pounding like a rabbit.

     


One gunshot rang out on our left and Ani whined, "They're everywhere!"

But we finally made it out. Rudi's tail hairs were still trembling and Ani complained that she fear-pooped 7 or 8 times on our walk out of there.

Standing in that field near the trail head, I was glad to be safe but I was furious that it was allowed to happen. There was no sign on my trailhead about the hunt. On Ani's side, yes.

I said, "Never again am I gonna ride when there's a hunt."

At the street, almost comically, a hunting dog ran up to us. No hunters in sight, it was obviously lost. It wore a blaze orange vest with a phone number written on it. I smacked the dog with the end of my lead rope as he tried to accost me. I yelled at it and to Ani, "Stupid hunters lost their stupid dog!" That dog circling me in the street as cars whizzed by just put me over my limit. I said some things to the dog I fear will color Ani's opinion of me. And the neighbors who probably heard.

Finally the dog ran off down my street (!), still circling and searching for the hunt.

Almost home, a forest ranger drove by and for a moment I was tempted to stop him and say, "WHAT THE HELL" but I just looked at him and shook my head.