Visited by a Jaguar!

This morning as we were finishing breakfast a little before 7:00, we noticed Nock crouched and staring intently at the door to the back porch. She’s usually somewhere around the table while we eat so her behavior was noticeably odd, and even when Tom called her she just sort of whined, banged her tail on the floor a couple of times, and kept watching the door. Tom got up to let her out, and she made a barking beeline to the back corner of the dog yard. Beli and Stout got up and ran barking to the front porch. Tom went after Nock, and just as I reached the front porch behind Beli and Stout he shouted “Marge! Jaguar!” I got to the front porch just in time to see its tail end disappearing into the brush right behind the dog yard, but lucky Tom was able to get a good look as it bounded down the path from the chicken cage (now empty) and went within a couple of feet of Nock as it bounded through the clear area around the yard before leaping into the jungle. We know they’re around, but we never thought we’d be lucky enough to see one, much less see one running through the clear area around the house. Now we’re really glad we have the fully fenced dog cage so none of our dogs have become jaguar supper when we turn them out at night.