About two months ago, I talked to my folks who live in Fannin county and have about 300 acres of land. It seems something had been spooking the dogs again at night. It has happened on and off for the last 2 years, albeit infrequently. With all that land, our dogs run quite a bit. Apparently, they smelled or heard something around 3 am that made the hair of their spine stand up and caused them to bark wildly for about 2 hours. They would not leave the yard. My first thought was a bear, when they told me. Every once in awhile, a black bear will happen through, but doesn't stay for long due to the fact that both my folks and 2 of their distant neighbors have dogs, and mostly because the smaller black bears we do have are fairly timid.
I go up their fairly often to shoot and goof off, so I decided to go check it out. I walked about 1/4 mile down an old logging road that crosses the property with Bailey, our 2 year-old golden Lab. After an hour or so, we walked down to an old house site (late 1800's - early 1900's build). Bailey immediately changes posture. She freezes, and the hair stands up on her back again, and she starts growling. Something takes off through the woods about 200 ft. away in the opposite direction. All I could tell is that it was a dark tan color, and it had a long tail. I couldn't make out its head or front part of body. It kinda bounded off through the woods, and dissappeared. Bailey stayed aggravated for the next day or so.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. Nothing unusual had happened since my "spotting", but my folks call , and tell me that the dogs got spooked again, and this time our dog Rocky is missing. They drove down on the property for a couple hours looking for him, but don't ever find him. Rocky was a mutt, but a great one nonetheless: totally non-aggressive, and doesn't wander much. I should point out that is the second dog we have lost. The first was a small black lab mix that was getting older. We wrote her off to old age, thinking she had just gone off somewhere and maybe passed on, but now I'm not so sure. She was in good health, and it was unexplainable at the time.
Last week I go down to the DNR office and tell them our situation. The only response I get is "we don't have wild cats, mountain lions, cougars, etc. in this part of the country." I ask them about other reports of such animals, and they say they haven't heard anything. Frustrated, I leave and catch a game warden as I'm walking out the door. We get into a conversation about it, and he tells me to see if I can find a track, and get a plaster imprint of it. I take the advice, and search for a few hours, and finally find what I think may be the track near the old spring. It was not deep enough to get a good cast, as I could barely make it out anyway.
I kind of forget about the whole mess, because I have alot going on, but folks call again Monday night with the same deal - dogs have been spooked again. This time our other black lab has come back home limping, and 4 puncture wounds to the side and back. They took him to the vet Tuesday, and he'll be okay, mainly just sore for a few days.
I call DNR back and tell them that we definitatey have some sort of predator. After much discussion, I get the same answer, that we don't have wild cats, and that it was most likely a fight with another dog, or possibly a bear. I told the guy I was talking to that we have a cat, that I've seen it, and if and when I see it again, I'm going to remove it from the non-existant population of wildcats in north Georgia. He then goes on about them being spotted in North Carolina and Tennessee, but had no recent reports of them in north Georgia. I think he said something to the effect of them being "protected" (haven't verified this), and if in fact one did exist, they would need to come setup live catch traps and relocate it.
Anyway, does anyone have any experience hunting or tracking this type of animal? From what I have read, they are nocturnal hunters, territorial, can be aggressive toward people or animals, and can normally range 150 square miles. Food can be small deer, mice, rabbits and other small game,
and ground nesting birds such as turkey and pheasant. Anyone had avice on how to lure or hunt this thing?