When coyotes attack… in my front yard

/ hsoi

5:30 AM. Saturday morning.

Kissing Wife goodbye before I head out the door to KR Training. We hear a cat yowl outside, but didn’t think too much of it because we’ve been hearing cat fights in the early mornings for the past some whiles.

But Sasha thought something of it. She got amped… in a different way. Something wasn’t right, as far as she perceived.

I stepped out the front door and in a matter of seconds realized what was wrong.

10 yards in front of me — in the grass of my front yard — I saw the shape of a dog, turning to stare back at me.

“Crap… dog… what’s this dog? a problem dog? friendly dog? don’t let MY dog out, don’t let my dog see this!”

“Oh… there are TWO dogs… there’s something dangling from the second dog’s mouth… it’s… a cat… OH SHIT. COYOTES!” They obviously had just killed the cat.

It all flashed and processed in a couple seconds. Dropped my stuff back in the house and the 2 yotes took off. I booked it after the yotes as they took off down the street. I chased for a number of reasons: to try to better identify the animal taken (so the neighbor that lost the cat could know; closure), to see what I could see about the yotes themselves; to chase them off. No… I wasn’t going to get all Rick Perry on them.

I was able to get a fair idea of the cat… tho we’re not sure who it belonged to. Wife and Kiddos found a cat collar in the yard; no tags.

Really, none of this surprises me.

We may live in Austin, but wildlife abounds. Deer are common, with our landscape being munched and deer poop throughout the neighborhood yards. We probably hear coyotes howl at least once or twice a month. I remember a few years ago there was a mountain lion spotted at the Wildflower Center (matter of miles from my house).

And coyotes have to eat too. As far as I could tell, they were just hungry.

Food hasn’t been scarce… but then, when there are lots of cats wandering the neighborhood, that equates to food not being scarce.

No it wasn’t what I expected to see when I stepped out of my house, but it’s not really a surprise.

It’s a reality of living in this area. Be aware of it. And if you don’t want such a result to befall your beloved pets, keep them indoors.

16 thoughts on “When coyotes attack… in my front yard”

  1. That is part of my frustration with the folks across the street from me. We HAVE coyotes in the area. We have on multiple occasions heard them singing fairly close by. We’ve seen tracks in the yard. Neighbors across the street even SAW the coyotes. They made a point of telling me “make sure you keep an eye on your dogs!!”…..and their cat is allowed to wander when ever and where ever it wants. I honestly don’t know how the thing is still alive, its almost gotten hit by cars at least 6 times that I’ve personally seen, and husband says he’s almost hit it twice. Neighbors north of us say they don’t mind it because it mouses in their (and our) back yards. I pointed out that I have two dogs who try, frantically, to get out and kill it every time they see it…..

    • Well, do they accept the cat might become dinner at some point? Then… let it be.

      That’s the thing. If you are going to let your pets roam about, then you have to accept they are unlikely to live to a ripe old age, because of fights, cars, predators, whatever. If you’re unwilling to accept this, you can’t let them roam.

      What bugs me more then is people unwilling to accept this, then get mad when nature does as nature does. I mean… I can’t hold it against them for being upset, but reality hurts when you try to deny it.

      • When I asked that question I was informed he was an indoor cat who’s not supposed to be outside and “I don’t know how he keeps getting out!”. But apparently they aren’t bothered by the prospect. I probly wouldn’t care so much except Apollo would really like to put the cat in its place for daring to be in HIS yard and I actually kinda worry about him going through a window……considering that this same family allowed their dogs to wander freely till I called animal control twice (“I didn’t know they were leaving the yard! I’ll work on training them!”) I have to assume that no, they don’t really care.

          • not much, which doesn’t keep me from being occasionally frustrated by it….especially when I have two dogs going balistic cause the cat is sitting 20ft from the window in the sun….

          • I do understand. I’ve thought about putting bars on the INSIDE of my front window… to keep the dog IN.

  2. Yeah, It has been about a year since the coyotes were really thick in the greenbelt, but I knew their numbers were coming up about 3 months ago when we starting seeing all the missing cat signs in the neighborhood. We hear that same pack all the time, and they get our Rat Terrier all worked up when he hears/ smells them.

    • Yeah, you get to hear/see the same ones that I do. I mean, take a look at the satellite maps of our area and it’s just perfect for critters to live and roam in… it’s not like we’re downtown surrounded by miles of concrete jungle.

      I wonder if we should start putting up signs notifying people of coyotes in the area. I wonder what sort of response it would garner.

  3. Damn, John. That’s wild. I feel sorry for the kitty’s family, but nature is “red in tooth and claw”, right?

    • Yeah, I feel sorry for them too… it sucks. I will never forget that one year as a kid, I walk out of my house to go to the school bus stop and found my cat disembowled on the driveway. Some neighbor allowed their 2 dogs to roam freely in the neighborhood, killing everything they could catch. *sigh* I won’t forget the pain, and it’s large part why my cats are indoor cats.

  5. When I was a little kid we lived on the outskirts of Las Vegas; our fox terrier ran across a coyote, and we ended up with a litter of odd-looking pups from the meeting.

  6. Pingback: 2012-10-25 workout – Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 14, press 2 « Stuff From Hsoi

  7. Pingback: 2014-01-13 training log | Stuff From Hsoi

Comments are closed.