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Milton dog attacked by coyote was in her own yard, owner says
By adamg on Sun, 05/22/2016 - 10:14pm
Colleen and Richard Labbe of Milton own the dog that was attacked by a coyote the other morning. She reports it was hardly a case of a dog being unleashed and going after the coyote as reported by police; in fact, the coyote attacked the dog in their backyard:
Our dog, Cally, was not on a leash because she was in our own, fenced-in back yard. In the early morning, my husband took her out to go to the bathroom. My husband was in the backyard as well. The coyote attacked our dog in the backyard and ran out of the gate and down the street, with her in its mouth.
My husband, Richard Labbe, chased it down the street and jumped on it, which caused the coyote to drop the dog. Cally was able to run home and we brought her to the hospital.
She is now recovering from several wounds. We are grateful that she survived.
However, the coyote was spotted at the end of our street again this morning. Neighbors see it often walking up and down Collamore Street and Alvin Ave. And we have recently been informed that it also attacked another dog in neighboring Quincy.
We have called the Police and Animal Control and are hoping something will be done immediately. They are aware that it is a female coyote with 3 pups and living in the woods on Alvin Ave.
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Comments
I hope nothing is done.
The mother is trying to feed her pups.
Maybe we should feed it our babies
Because humans come last.
Binary Thinking Again
Black lives matter = war on white people
Women's rights respected = war on men
Respect for wildlife = war on humans
Gay people marry = war on marriage
Any other false dichotomies you care to share?
Why did the cops go out of their way
to blame the owner in their report? Do coyotes wield some kind of political influence in Milton? Not to mention, leash or no leash wouldn't seem to have made a difference in this case.
The difference
If you tie down your fuzzy coyote breakfast, she won't be able to carry it off as easily.
True, though the thought of yanking on
my dog's leash while a coyote tried to wrassle it away is the stuff of nightmares. It just seems weird that they seemed to go out of their way to make it sound like the owner was being irresponsible instead of letting their dog out in the yard for a midnight pee in the yard.
They noted the dog was off leash
and speculated that the dog may have gone after the coyote (which is apparently a normal reaction for dogs). But because the POLICE are making these statements, it suddenly becomes "going out of their way to make the owner seem irresponsible."
Gimme a break.
Earth to UHub
Your dog is at far greater risk from another domestic dog than it is from a coyote.
Maybe they got all of the
Maybe they got all of the facts?
Do these people expect the
Do these people expect the cops to shoot this coyote on site?
Despite what the media tells people, maybe the cops aren't comfortable taking a life, even an animal's? I know I wouldn't be.
- a Boston Cop
True men
Don't kill coyotes.
Not the cops' job, for a reason
Animal control isn't the cops' job, it's not their skill set, and their service revolvers aren't the tool to deal with problem wildlife except as a matter of last resort -- and, sorry to say, but no matter how beloved the dog is, this isn't "last resort". Of course the owners are upset, and quite likely they didn't call "the cops" but called 911 and dispatch sent the cops, but hopefully they have had time to speak to someone (not the cops) who's knowledgeable about the wildlife situation in their area and who has useful advice. "Get rid of the coyotes" is neither practical nor would it solve the problem - the coyotes are there because they have food, habitat and relative safety (they don't have predators and they're not hunted). Humans can help by not providing food sources (garbage, unprotected small livestock and pets) and discouraging coyotes from approaching human spaces whenever they see them, rather than taking pictures or, god forbid, baiting them. It's just reality, when you live next to coyote habitat, you can't simply let your dog run around, even inside your fenced-but-not-enclosed-at-the-moment yard.
Service Revolvers
What's next, Joe Friday demanding just facts from the coyote?
When was the last time you saw a Boston cop with a wheel gun on his hip?
I hear
tying an onion to your belt keeps away coyotes
Acme
Acme products do a great job of dealing with pesky coyotes in a surprisingly non-lethal manner.
It ain't a long gun, son
And it's shit for hunting.
If you want to get technical
I believe they are called "assault pistols"
/s
The husband jumped on a
The husband jumped on a coyote? Damn!
Might be prudent for home owners to keep the gates to their fenced-in yards closed if they let their dogs run around loose in them. It's not rocket science. It would be a shame if the mother coyote is killed and the pups then starve to death. Glad the little dog survived the attack and hope local pet owners are more responsible going forward.
A lot of people
have fences that are tight enough for their dog, but not necessarily another dog. People with big dogs have chain link fences with gaps at the bottom; people with smaller dogs have shorter fences that a more agile animal can jump over.
It can also change seasonally: my MIL used to have her rural yard fenced in with heavy duty farm fencing, and the minute it snowed, her dog figured out which drift was high enough to grant her freedom.
The laws of physics
If a dog is small enough to fit in a coyotes mouth, chances are the dog didn't attack first.
sometimes
they act aggressively out of fear. Typical defense mechanism.
Have you SEEN most chihuahuas
Have you SEEN most chihuahuas when they encounter a bigger dog being walked?
Yep
There's a chihuahua that I encounter when I run. It goes completely batshit when I run by, to the point that the owner has to pick it up to restrain it.
Little dogs, man. They crazy.
They don't have to be crazy
But they are considered more accessory than pet. Which means their owners do not train them.
The thing about Chihuahuas ...
They are really vast pan dimensional beings that suffer from a very small presentation in the three dimensions our planet offers.
They also have no idea that they are very small in our three dimensions, and act accordingly.
Coyote attacks are very rare.
Coyote attacks are very rare. Possible this one is rabid, which is an obvious concern. Hope the pup is ok.
4:00 am
And hungry.
Not likely rabid.
I don't think they are that
I don't think they are that rare. One killed my dog two years ago at Stony Brook reservation.
I think there should be more education about coyotes...
I have friends who live in other parts of the country, much more rural than Boston, Milton, Newton and other areas around here that have reported seeing coyotes. My friends have told me that it is almost, but not quite, common knowledge that you do not let your cat or dog out without it being on a leash, not even in your own fenced-in yard.
Why? Well, because of situations like this. Sometimes someone forgets to close the gate. Sometimes the coyote or raccoons or other wild critters have dug around and loosened the dirt at the bottom enough for your pet to get out, or the coyote to get in. Sometimes the coyote jumps up onto your neighbor's car/trash cans/patio set/whatever and used those as a way to get up and over your fence. The point being, that no pet is safe unless it is on the leash AND within a few feet of a human. Most coyotes will not approach a human unless they are sick or cornered.
Since there are more and more reports about coyotes around, I think people should be taught what to, and what NOT to do around coyotes. It might cut down on the number of injured or dead/missing pets.
I know this information is hardly secret, it's just that far too many people won't be aware of it unless it is reduced to short, sweet sound bites.
I have a larger dog (Lab mix)
I have a larger dog (Lab mix) and live in the suburbs, and know there is at least one coyote that lives nearby, likely in the woods next to our property. My dog is mostly alright off leash when closely watched, but at night or early in the morning, I'm hesitant to let her off leash in the yard, just in case there's a coyote out.
I don't see what sort of argument "we were in our own yard" serves to accomplish, the coyote is a wild animal, in its natural habitat (or former habitat that our homes destroyed), and does not care if you have a fence or not.
And if the coyote was able to run out the gate, does that mean the gate was open, or it forced it open? A fence isn't really useful if you leave the gate wide open...
You make too many good and
You make too many good and valid arguments here for us to comprehend.
It's just easier to blame the cops.
There are more woods in MA
There are more woods in MA now than there were 200 years ago, go for a walk in the woods notice all the stone walls? Those were farms. Additionally living near humans IS the coyotes natural habitat.
The humans=bad for building homes argument is just preposterous.
Except...
Except that nobody made that argument. That's your logical leap.
Yes, they were, although your timeline might be off by about 30 years or so. But either way, that's a blip on the timeline of a species. Europeans come to the New World, start clear-cutting for farms, shoot out the predators like coyotes. Then the Erie Canal comes along and all of a sudden it makes more sense to go to Ohio than farm rocks in New England. Farms are abandoned, and gradually, over the course of about 160 years, a lot of land that was previously used for agriculture is let go back to woods. Fewer farmers means less critter control and more habitat. And it still takes a "long" time, in human-memory terms, for the coyote to really come back. But it hasn't been a "long" time after all, has it? And you can't look at a short slice of history and say that an even smaller slice of it represents what's "natural" for the coyote.