Barbary Coast Ranger

I’m walking around Russian Hill with Amy, and this is before we spent all afternoon drinking, and two things jumped out as noteworthy.

1. There seem to be a lot of missing pet flyers up around town these days and . . .
2. The big set of paw prints we saw

We’re walking past a car when Amy stops and points at the car’s hood. You can see paw prints outlined in the dust and dirt and Amy, who has two cats, says “Those are way too big to be a cat’s prints.”

I lean over the hood and say, “But dogs don’t usually jump up on car hoods . . . ” and we look at the prints and then look at each other and say “Coyote.” Suddenly all those missing pet fliers made sense.

Coincidentally, I was in Texas later that week and saw a display on critter footprints out at McKinney Falls State Park. The coyote prints sure look like what I saw on the hood of that car. Hold on to your yip dogs Russian Hill: Wile E. is on the prowl and your dog is not nearly as fast as the Road Runner.

Picture credit is from emdot on Flickr under creative commons attribution copyright. No it was not taken in San Francisco and, like an idiot, I forgot to get pictures of the prints on the hood of the car.