Interesting episode with a deer

Any deer people out there??

Interesting morning. I'm no deer behavorial expert by any stretch, but it was weird. DH went out to start his truck and there was a deer in the driveway. He walked down to try to scare if off (so he could leave), but the deer wouldn't go. It just stood there. DH came back in the house, got me up and I gave him the camera to try to take some pictures. He got in the truck and started backing down the driveway. The deer just stood there! DH went forward and then had to edge over to the side of the driveway and backed down RIGHT NEXT TO THE DEER! He actually put his window down and started talking to the deer, who just stood there, watching him.

Well, after DH left, Mollipop and I stood at the bay window watching. That deer hopped backwards up over the snow at the side of the driveway and slowly walked backwards the entire front of the yard. I went back to the computer room (where we have double windows) and watched him (or her, no antlers, but I don't know deer and it's not the season for antlers, is it??) walk backwards right to the back of the yard. By that time, I had to grab my shower and when I came back, it was gone. Just seems really strange. DH said he's never seen anything like it. Rabies, maybe? He's never ever had a deer just stand there while he drove past it....he could have reached out and touched it, it was that close. And the fact that the whole time I watched it, it never walked forward at all, always backward. Very strange.

When Molli was in the bay window in the living room, her hackles rose and she started growling at it. BooBoo was there, too, and he was very intrigued, but he didn't growl or anythng. The cats are all used to deer; there are two deer trails, one on either side of our property and the deer hang out here all the time. Last snow storm showed deer paths all over the yard, so it's not like she didn't know what it was.

Wow that is weird! Up here our deer walk forward!

In fact, I had two in the yard last evening at the birdfeeder.

Gee, I hope it's not rabies. Did the deer seem sure footed...didn't stumble, or fall?

You should call the DEC and ask them what they think. That's wild!!

Awwww, maybe he just wanted a friend!

I love deer. We used to have quite a few around our area, but it has been awhile since I have seen any.

I don't know anythng about deer behaviour, but I'm wondering if it was just desperate? If you've got the kind of snow there that we have here, it's going to be hard for deer to forage for food.

As for walking backwards, I wonder if a deer is intelligent enough to cover it's tracks to avoid predators? A human would walk backwards to obliterate their tracks, but would a deer do it? I googled that question, and was rewarded with the answer that a deer will walk backwards when it's footing is unsure (such as on a slippery surface) or when it's afraid.

You and your DH had an amazing experience! I really wouldn't be worried about a rabid deer---just a frightened, hungry one.

Maybe while he was a young deer, and learning how to walk, someone showed him videos of deers walking on rewind j/k

Seriously that is weird, maybe he has some kind of illness?

It's possible for them to get used to seeing people up close because they hang around some residential areas (where they are safe from being hunted) and are often fed. Some people are stupid enough to attempt hand feeding...

Healthy or sick, never walk up on any wild animal like that - especially deer. It's not unknown for them to attack people and dogs, and when they do they can cause severe injury and even death.

Certainly NOT normal behaviour and reverse is not a normal 'gear' for cervids beyond a step or two before fight. As mentioned, deer are wild animals, and despite being spoonfed nice and kind Bambi by Disney Corp, they are not nice and can be very aggressive, and are armed with razor sharp hooves that can disembowel a human. If it is hungry, aggression will rise and if it is sick (likely Chronic Wasting Disease rather than rabies) aggression will rise until neuological failuie begins to happen

My grandmother always said they don't believe their eyes. That is why they stand still and stare at cars as they pass by. But you can't trust them, sometimes they will run straight into a car. My husband hit one with our truck last year that just ran into the side of the vehicle

Dragging this back up after I read a rather disturbing post on another board today. According to the woman who posted the disturbing story, a friend of hers had raised a deer and at age two, the deer put her in the hospital with multiple broken bones and severe internal injuries.

A brief google search produced a string of hits, ranging from newspaper stories to video to anecdotes, and FWIW, I knew a woman (now deceased) who was chased out of her own garden by a moose a few years ago. Here is a link to a thread on a forum specific to Yosemite Park: http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?1,3334,3334

Deer (well, ungulates in general) kill more people every year than big cats. . .don't mess with them!

I would also say that CWD is more likely than rabies, or the deer was veryvery hungry. But that isn't normal behavior, and the walking backward thing is just plain weird.

My DH, a reformed hunter, says that is not normal for a deer to walk backwards for that distance.

Something neurological?

We rather thought it was due to the deer being on ice, that it was walking backward. But that was quite a distance. We haven't seen it since....and I hope we don't anymore. It was downright weird.

VERY STRANGE!!! I have deer in the woods behind my house and they all will run from us and they go forward. Maybe that baby was born with a backward brain . Seriously, that is not right. Poor deer, I hope she gets turned around soon.