Aloepuppy

It’s funny when I tell people what I do for a living. They say: “You do what?” and sometimes chuckle to themselves.

They ask me: “And you can actually earn a living?”. I say yes…

What they don’t realise is that while pet sitting or dog walking sounds like an easy gig, it does come with its own challenges.

One spring day while walking my clients’ two small terriers named Skye and Pepper, we encountered a female wild turkey in a wooded area. Now I’ve seen wild turkeys before and can’t say I’ve ever had any issue with them. But on this day of dog walking, there was going to be trouble.

The wooded area was a short cut I often took when it was time to head back. It was a short path that lead from one street to another, and so like any other day we ventured in as there was no need to scan the area. Usually there might be a squirrel or two, but that was it.

So as we got to the middle of the path, camouflaged under the brush, there suddenly came a frantic chirp! I looked to see a baby turkey or what they call a poult, huddled under its mother’s wing. The terriers I walk, a White Highland and a Cairn terrier were as surprised as I was! The mother turkey began to cluck and putt as if to say; “Intruder, intruder get away from here!”

It gets worse. She decided she was going to start moving towards us while madly flapping her wings. Shocked and not having any previous experience with turkey altercations, I began to slowly move backwards out of the bush dragging the two terriers with me. If you know these type of dogs, they don’t generally back down from another animal they think they could take.

So, they both started barking, growling like they were ready for a fight. Skye was growling as if to say; “I’m not afraid of you old mother hen!”, while Pepper backed her up with added growls and barks.

We continued to walk backward out of the bush and I assumed once we were back on the street, the turkey would return to her poult. But, to my dismay she did not. She continued to stalk us and we ended up in someone’s driveway! My heart was now pounding in my chest as neither the turkey or my terriers were letting up. I started to look around for another escape route.

I looked up and down the street and realized there wasn’t much I could do but go around the wooded area. As I turned the corner, I saw a service van parked in a home owners driveway. He appeared to be working in the garage.

With the wild turkey still following us, I decided to approach him and ask for help.

I explained to him that we were being stalked by a wild turkey and pointed behind me. I asked if he would be so kind as to give us a drive back to the house where the terriers lived. He looked at me with a look on his face like; “Are you serious lady?”. I mentioned that the turkey was aggressive and I was concerned she would attack me and the dogs. He looked again as the turkey was drawing closer and he could see I wasn’t kidding.

He agreed to give us a lift, and within moments of entering the van, the turkey was on to her next victim, another lady walking her dog nearby.

I’m happy to say that we did not see that female turkey again. Nor did we return to the wooded area either.

Now I am much more cautious with or without my dogs when I spot a turkey meandering in people’s neighbourhoods. I did manage to look up what you are supposed to do when encountering a wild turkey and it says to establish dominance first thing. Whether that be to yell, clap your hands or have a leashed dog with you to bark at it! I laughed, thinking to myself: “Yah sure, two little aggressive terriers could not scare this mama bird away!”.

However, I will know what to do should there be a next time. Do you have wild turkeys in your neck of the woods? What would you do?