coyote worries?
I know the Andersons have plenty of coyotes in Taos, but who knew they were taking over urban GA too? On our evening walk tonight, I saw the second coyote I've seen in the last few weeks. The first one was a few days before Thanksgiving and I almost hit it with my car when pulling into a restaurant parking lot.
Then tonight, while walking the dogs, we rounded the corner and I saw another one about 30 feet ahead of me on the street standing under a street light. Joey got interested and tried to speed up. It stood quietly for a second or two, and then turned and walked up the street through the shadows. I could only make out its silhouette at this point. It got up to the outer reaches of the light from the next street light and turned to look back at us. It watched for a few seconds before walking through the light and into a really dark shadow underneath a huge tree in someone's yard. As we approached, Joey became really focused on it, but it wasn't his usual focus, like he wanted to play. It was much more intense somehow. I stopped, mostly because I wanted to see if I could get a better look at it, and Joey (on his own, without command) sat but continued to focus on the dark shadow.
About 30 seconds goes by, and out of nowhere Joey lets out this crazy growl bark combination and lunges forward toward the shadow, going nuts. I of course freaked and assumed this coyote was coming to eat us, so I immediately started backing away down the street keeping one eye on the shadow and one eye on Joey to see where he was looking. Once Joey relaxed, I relaxed, and turned back to face forward. Freaky!
So, my question is, at what point do I start worrying about coyote around here? And what safety precautions should I take?
Then tonight, while walking the dogs, we rounded the corner and I saw another one about 30 feet ahead of me on the street standing under a street light. Joey got interested and tried to speed up. It stood quietly for a second or two, and then turned and walked up the street through the shadows. I could only make out its silhouette at this point. It got up to the outer reaches of the light from the next street light and turned to look back at us. It watched for a few seconds before walking through the light and into a really dark shadow underneath a huge tree in someone's yard. As we approached, Joey became really focused on it, but it wasn't his usual focus, like he wanted to play. It was much more intense somehow. I stopped, mostly because I wanted to see if I could get a better look at it, and Joey (on his own, without command) sat but continued to focus on the dark shadow.
About 30 seconds goes by, and out of nowhere Joey lets out this crazy growl bark combination and lunges forward toward the shadow, going nuts. I of course freaked and assumed this coyote was coming to eat us, so I immediately started backing away down the street keeping one eye on the shadow and one eye on Joey to see where he was looking. Once Joey relaxed, I relaxed, and turned back to face forward. Freaky!
So, my question is, at what point do I start worrying about coyote around here? And what safety precautions should I take?
Comments
I've been thinking about this, too, because at night I can hear what sounds like a dozen or so coyotes yipping and howling and I wonder what kind of precautions I should take. I'm mostly wondering about when I get my dog corral set up. Should I feel safe leaving them in there when I'm not around? Most of the fencing is 10' high with no spaces, which I assume was to protect corralled sheep from coyotes, but it isn't that high at the gates... what to do, what to do...
Jen and I were walking down lower Roswell road one night with the pups and out of nowhere 2 Coyotes ran past us - they were running right down the center of the street/ It was crazy! That's when I realized they were in GA. They were pretty big too - bigger than Ahi.
My opinion, if you are with your dogs you don't have to worry to much - but, in some ways, you could figure the Coyotes in your area are more dangerous than the ones in my area due to the fact that they are more tame and therefore less fearful of humans.
I would bet a flashlight is all you would need to scare one off tho - just aim it at them if you see them. You don't see them very often for a reasons - they don't want you to see them.
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Heidi -
I think you should really consider some type of protection once you have your corral setup. You have more than Coyote in your area, I am pretty sure you have wolves too. I dunno that my solution [an LGD] is the best solution for everyone but it's effective, environmentally friendly, and [for your situation] seems perfect - it may even be a better solution for you than it is for me.
Since you have relatives living on your property, and therefore more traffic than our property, you may want to go with a more people friendly LGD. Like a good working lines Great Pyrenees, a Kangol, or even a Central Asian Shepard. A CO would get the job done for sure, you would just need to make sure they understand that your extended family is their family too.
Two LGDs would take the worries away from you and could live outside comfortably.
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Maybe you should get a CO too... LOL
err... an Akita??? ;o)
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I'm not sure about wolves. Someone told me about a wolf going after the sheep back in the day, but that's second-hand information. I think there are wolf/coyote hybrids, or at least, HUGE coyotes because I have seen/heard of coyotes that are gigantic, especially in some of the more heavily-wooded areas. We're also going to be planting trees and letting the majority of the property basically go wild, and that will no doubt attract wildlife.
Anyway... I'm thinking about it and looking into it. Another good thing about LGDs is they can be used for draught work. We're always using the tractor or lawn mower to haul wagons full of things around, but a dog could get the job done, too!
We have to be careful when leaving Bella (and eventually Nola) outside alone during the dark hours in the winter. We have had a few coyotes hang out in our back yard. We have a stash of firecrackers (similar to cherry bombs, just not as powerful) that we keep to quickly get them out of the yard. It sounds like a gunshot, and the coyotes take off (and so do the squirrels, groundhogs, and crows).
The bigger threat posed by coyotes, seems to me, is probably rabies. It would suck to have a rabid coyote come into contact with one of my pets.