Headlong Pursuit

A little over a month ago I posted this on Facebook:

CITIZEN SCIENTIST!Prophet has been training for a while with Sits & Wiggles Dog Training to assist with the Gotham Coyote Project. This entails finding coyote scat so the biologists can check DNA and recent meals. He went along on a field day in Pelham Bay Park, shadowing Scout, who is the experienced dog, but they found nothing that day.Today, on a regular walk in Van Cortlandt Park, with no instruction to search, Prophet insisted on leaving the trail, zigzagging the ground with his nose. When I got bored and started to walk back to the trail, he gave me one loud bark, and continued to search. Then he looked up triumphantly, and there it was: coyote scat. I carefully put it in a poop bag and noted the GPS location.
Yes, Jorge, I treated him profusely. (We ❤️R+)
Yes, Ferdie, I treated him right at the sample.
I suppose I should confirm that the sample is, in fact, from a coyote, but I am fairly certain and I am really proud, so...

He has located more since then, near the same spot.

Today we had a different experience.  He had been following some kind of sign off and on all morning, but it is hard for me to know what: a deer? a feral cat? an opossum? some other dog?  We walked around a deer carcass that has been there for a couple of weeks and is now picked almost clean.  Then we stopped atop a steep, broken, rocky slope where we often stand to check out the Northwest Woods.  There was only a dusting of snow on the ground today from yesterday's flurries.  Here is a photo of that spot from two weeks ago when it was actually snowing in earnest.

I started down the slope just behind the rocks in the left of this photo.  Honestly, I was curious about the possibility of getting an even better camera angle than this.  Prophet seemed happy to be going somewhere new.

Suddenly, his hackles went up, he began snarling and he disappeared around a corner.  When he reappeared he was angrily pacing back and forth, looking for a way down.  I clearly should have summoned him immediately.  But my curiosity often gets the better of me and I was lost in wondering what in the world he had discovered.  So, instead of calling him off, I stood and watched while he jumped down and disappeared again.

When Prophet reappeared, he was in headlong pursuit of an adult coyote.  The coyote rocketed down that slope and then made a quick turn onto the footpath below.  Prophet was two or three lengths behind.  The coyote pivoted onto the cross country track and now I saw Prophet open his stride, using his whole body to generate speed.  Did I mention that I was shouting?  From the instant I realized that Prophet was chasing a wild predator I was bellowing: "Prophet! Come!"  Repeatedly.  To no effect whatsoever.  I saw not one twitch of an ear, not one hesitation, to indicate that he heard my voice or that he was anything but completely single-minded in his pursuit.

I was standing near the top of a steep ridge, the winter woods clear of foliage, so I could see a good long way.  Nevertheless, Prophet quickly disappeared from view as his quarry cut back in another direction around the next little hill.  I had not stopped shouting.  I didn't know what would happen next.

In a moment, Prophet reappeared, looking around.  I called to him again and I could see him respond to my voice by directing himself back up the cross country track toward me.  Unfortunately, a runner now appeared, heading in his direction.  I really don't like him to encounter runners without them seeing me and seeing that Prophet is in control, but they were both at least a hundred yards from me.  The best thing I could think of at the moment was to have the runner hear my voice and see Prophet responding, so I called him again and watched him race past the runner, almost without turning to look at him.  I wonder what was in that man's mind.

When Prophet returned to me at the top of the slope I put him in a long down-stay and hoped that this -- along with a refusal to give him a treat -- was sufficient evidence of my displeasure with his failure to respond to my first (or second... or third... or fourth...) summons.

Now I wonder these things: 
What would Prophet have done if he caught that coyote?  
Was he really trying?  (I think he has another gait, a sprint, faster than the run he was using.)  
Does this behavior constitute play or is it something more serious?
How do I encourage his curiosity and boldness without allowing him to upset the critters that live in the park?

That last is a longstanding concern.  This morning, Facebook offered me the opportunity to share an old posting of mine.  It is a picture taken last December by one of the Gotham Coyote Project's camera traps in Riverdale Park.  It clearly shows a man and a dog happily posing for a photo.  It was taken way off any established trail.  I enjoy walking away from the marked paths (figuratively, too!) but looking at that photograph a year ago made me wonder what Prophet and I were disrupting by being there.  If the biologists chose an out-of-the-way place, a location they thought belonged to the coyotes, then why were we even there?

It is the Bronx.  There is no way around that.  But there also has to be some mutual respect.  I didn't throw stones, or lay out poisoned meat, or shoot at that coyote.  And I guess Prophet gets to make some choices, too.  For me, it is an ethical conundrum.