I think a deer wants to become friends with my dogs. Can someone provide an
alternative explanation to the following events from this afternoon in
Chapel Hill? Apologies in advance for the length of this account.

I've got a fenced-in, wooded backyard surrounded by more woods. Lots of deer
hang out in the neighborhood, although when my dogs are outside and see
them, the barking usually sends the deer on their way.

Today I was outside when one of the dogs ran to the back of the fence and
started barking. I looked up and saw a deer near the fence. But instead of
running off, the deer actually approached the fence where the dog was. About
a minute later my other dog decided to check out the commotion and ran back
there. So now two dogs are barking at this deer that's no more than a yard
away, and the deer doesn't run. Indeed, when the dogs occasionally lunged in
the deer's direction the deer would lunge back.

After a few minutes Dog no. 1 got bored and ran along the edge of the fence
toward the house. Dog no. 2 followed her. And then the deer followed also,
running just on the other side of the fence. Dog no. 1 kept going toward the
house but Dog no. 2 stopped to bark at the deer some more. The deer stood
there for a while and then finally ran off toward the house next door.

I went back to reading the newspaper, but about five minutes later the deer
came back. Dog no. 2 ran back to bark some more, and the dog and the deer
lunged at each other a few times. Finally the dog stopped barking and the
two animals just stood there looking at each other through the wire fence.

By now I was really intrigued, so I crept out closer to the action and sat
down behind some brush about 15 yards away. Dog no. 2 ran over to me to say
hi and sat by me for a while. The deer waited about a minute and then
started walking away. The movement attracted Dog no. 2 to run back to the
fence (by now he's quit barking). The deer turned around and walked back
also. The dog stood there a while looking at the deer and then ran to the
back part of the yard where the deer had first appeared. The deer again
followed the dog and stopped just on the other side of the fence. The two
stared at each other for a few minutes and then the dog lay down and the
deer started munching on some tree leaves. If they were people, they would
have close enough to shake hands.

Nothing changed for the longest time, except when I would move occasionally
to shift position or slap a mosquito the deer would look up guardedly until
I was still again. After a while, the mosquitoes were biting so badly I had
to retreat out of the woods and the dog got up and followed me. The deer
watched for a few seconds and then wandered off.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? The whole episode lasted
about 30 minutes. At the beginning the deer would occasionally stomp the
ground like I've seen them do to warn others of a threat. That made me think
that perhaps there was a fawn somewhere nearby, which maybe would have
helped explain the lunging. But when the deer would leave the dogs it was
always in a different direction, and I never saw any other deer the whole
time. Plus, I've never seen deer behave aggressively, even with their
offspring around.