Coyote Attack

Wow, what a terrifying situation. You know what? Dogs will be dogs, and regardless of training (which we always hope will be up to par when the situation arises), of opinion, and of fantasy about what dogs are, at heart dogs are canines, and they are predators. And dogs on their own turf against a *wild* animal will often chase and hunt them.

It's easy to say *train for it*. We can train, and we can train, and we can train, but you cannot train for something like that. Unless you can capture a wild coyote, stick it in a pen, and train WITH a coyote, you cannot expect that recalling from the water on the beach, another dog, or even a squirrel will mean that the dog will recall from a large predator. And because you cannot proof for something like a wild coyote in your backyard, far be it for anyone to judge your dog's obedience skills, IMO, based on such a situation. My dogs are very well behaved, and well trained. But if given the chance,  Gaci will still hunt and kill those things she sees as prey. She doesn't kill other dogs, she doesn't attack people or small kiddies, but wild animals, well, she's just doing what her heritage tells her to do. It's not even about being a Pitbull, or about being a terrier (of which I have too, and honestly, Gaci has the voraciousness of any Pittie as well, just a smaller jaw and size *G*), it's about being a dog. Through and through. And somebody who firmly believes that dogs will not, or should not, ever hunt animals......should get a bunny. Because they are carnivores, predators, and even domesticated still have those drives.

I'm just glad you are okay, and that hte dogs will be okay. I once had a half-starved coyote follow me, at a RUN, on my bike as a teenager. I was sheer terrified, and was even more terrified to stop biking on the offchance it came after me. It was horrifying and I'll never forget it. I wouldn't personally be proud of my girls, but I wouldn't change my feeling of them one bit, and I would be thankful they WERE there, as in hand-to-hand combat, a coyote would have a human any day. We simply don't have the natural weapons that canids do (don't get me wrong, I would fight tooth and nail to prevent injury or harm to my animals, even if I had to use MY nails and teeth).

Sorry to hear you went through this, I'm sure i will leave you on edge for a while now. I didn't see it, or maybe I missed it, but do you have coyote rollers on the top of your fence? If not, I would recommend getting them put in, as it would lower the ability of coyotes to get ino your yard.

Thanks for your sweet reply Kim! This was 9 days ago and both dogs are on the mend. I posted updated pics in the photo section too!

I just looked into coyote rollers and some do-it-yourself alternatives but I actaully live on the California coast so they are not THAT common. However I am a mile away from a protected habitat that I never even knew we had until this happened.

So......the pest control guy who services my work told me to get a peice of wire or firm string/rope, to put a hole through the bottom of a soda bottle filled with pebbles or soemthing and run the wire through through the bottle, taut and secure it along the top of the fence. Typically I would spend the money investing in coyote rollers becasue the homemade kind sounds horribly ugly but the back fence is backed up to a alley so its not like many peopel see it. I dunno, we'll see!

Glad to hear your dogs are healing just fine.  I hve bene watching for update on rabiestest, but guess it isn't back.   In the counry side around here the dorp rabies vax laced meat for the coyotes I mean, betwen corpus and the Mexican boarder is mostly ranches, etc and lots of wild life.  I tend to worry mroe about skunks than coyotes (we hear them howling at night) as we smell skunks all tahe time.  Tho their scent can carry 1 1/2 miles, it often smells likeit is in neighbor's yard.