The boar story:
We were running through a valley, all alone in the world, Leni was on the leash. There was a steep climb up to the left and I heard some rustling up there, nothing unusal. My thoughts went from 'birds', to 'rabbits', to 'deer' as the sound got louder and clearly turned into the sound of an animal running. Still nothing unusual, I expected a deer to hop out and cross the path in front of us (and told Leni, "Don't even think about it", and shortened my hold on her leash).
In that very second, the sound turned into a
thundering herd of wild boar, at least
ten of them, charging down the hill at full-speed (30mph?) and passing about twenty meters ahead of us. When I saw them, I seriously thought "Buffallo???" for a second before coming to my senses. Leni started barking her head off and tried to get away to chase after them. They were huge:
and if we had been about 15 seconds quicker (if I had stopped to take one less picture beforehand), they would have trampeled us into the ground, and who knows, maybe stopped to take a bite out of us along the way.
Well, that was pretty exciting. I have to say I enjoyed it, wow! What a sight! They were so loud, probably because the were going down such a steep hill to begin with. And then
poof, they were gone, down into the valley on the right. Incredible.
We just continued jogging along at my slow pace and about a minute later, I understood better what had happened. The gunshots started riging out down in the valley. It was a forced hunt. Someone up at the top of the climb had spooked them and led them into the trap. From the sound of it, there were probably 4 or 5 hunters, and the shooting went on for a very long time...
So, after that, I was doubly glad that I had decided to keep Leni on the leash for this particular run!
oooops! Time to go to work !