Drake was attacked by a coyote in his own back yard!!!

Gregg Kurz

Gregg Kurz

Active member
Well I just got back from dropping a couple hundred bucks at the vets office for a few staples and some antibiotics..great way to start the weekend.

I let Drake out the back door around 5:30 this morning so he could go up the hill behind the house to do his business. About 5 minutes later I hear him outside the door barking his fool head off. Now understand, Drake very rarely barks and never just goes off like he was. So I went to the door to let him in and he's barking into the darkness, hackles up, ears peeled back, and his tail tucked firmly between his legs. Obviously something had spooked the crud out of him. I let him in and he seemed to settle down pretty quick. I was watching a deer hunting show on the tv and he got all riled up and started growling like crazy at the deer on the tube, so I just figured maybe a deer spooked drake out there in the dark and then blew it off. A while later I noticed that there was blood on the rug. Upon closer inspection I found two sizable puncture/tear wounds on his hind quarter and another one on his underbelly. No wonder he was freaking out eh? Off to the vet we went. Vet said it was definitely wounds from a medium to large canine. I'm damn near 100% sure it had to be a coyote, we've been hearing them a lot lately. Guess he's lucky he got away with only a few holes in his hide.

He's sleeping here at my feet now so all is well. Just another harrowing adventure in the life of a dog.
 
I'm sure he was barking at the door because he was tuckered out from all the ass whooping he was dishing out.

Pete says he wishes he was there to back him up.

T
 
Greg,
I always had some twinges letting my lab out the back even in a fenced in yard when living in Vancouver. Coyotes walked along the fence every day and night, just peeking and poking looking for who knows what. There was quit a large pack that lived in a small wood lot on the far side of the field behind the house and those song dogs patrolled the neighborhood every night. We had no stray cats anywhere near the hood.
Drake was lucky. I think a pack would have done more than a couple of puncture wounds.
 
That really stinks! I'd be huntin me some yotes if my dog couldn't be the queen of her yard. Are you too close to your neighbors to bait, wait & kill em?
 
He was real lucky Gregg. A friends Golden Retr. was killed a few years ago by coyotes - out the back door and up the hill, just like Drake.

Dogs don't stand much of a chance if it's more than one coyote.

We were hunting this morning and saw three come out on the ice across from us, just poking around. One of the guys did the mouse squeek and they heard him from about 400 yards away.

Glad he's alright but I bet he won't stray too far from the door for quite a while.
 
If you could devise a way to keep Drake out of it, I wonder do coyotes like the taste of anti-freeze ?

We didn't have those nasty little beasts in NC until the damn fox hunters started importing them. Oughta be a bounty on them.

Hope Drake does OK and I hope his rabies shots are current.

Best,
Harry
 
We didn't have those nasty little beasts in NC until the damn fox hunters started importing them.
Click to expand...
They were probably around before then, but not in enough of a population to be noticed. My dad is from Kinston so I will have to ask him what he remembers of coyotes from the 1940's and 50's. He spent most of his childhood on the farm and raised bird and coon dogs with his uncles so they might have run into some coyotes while out in the woods. The eastward expansion of the coyote was enhanced by the bridges built across the big rivers in the Midwest. And then they followed the roads and field edges filled with rodents all the way to the eastern shore. Coyotes are not "native" to Alaska either, but they started showing up in the interior in the early 1970's and are now everywhere along the road system. And that is how they migratred up here safely past all the wolves in Canada. Once the ALCAN was built they had a good route to take following the people and the road sides are full of food due to the rodents and birds. Easily living compared to the desert. You won't find coyotes in the Alaskan wilderness, just near the road systems where people have altered the land to provide a place for their food to grow. Being a native of the western deserts I was used to coyotes being around, but never in any numbers to be a bother to anyone but a chicken or two. A little trapping and a little shooting kept things even. Plus if you control their food you control them. Lots of jackrabbit shooting when ever the population boomed and the coyote poplulation would not follow it. All those years in the desert and western mountains I only saw a few killed on the highways. Many years later in 1989 I drove around North America and happened to be in the Florida panhandle in November. Never have I seen more dead coyotes on a road than that morning. There must have been one every 2 miles for over an hour of driving west towards NOLA. One way to help reduce the coyote population is to have bigger predators like the red wolf around. But then you would have more terrified modern people hiding under their beds.
 
Give ol' Drake a scratch behind the ear for me. We have a shitload of coyotes around here but I have only seen two. One was in a field on the way to work and the other was crossing a frozen lake while I was muzzle loader hunting. I thought it was a Collie for a bit..then it got about 150 yards and I could see it better. I waited as it came closer and was going to dump it but it turned and went in the woods. I got a doe a bit later and gutted it in a cornfield just out of the woods and a yote was barking just inside the woods. Bezubic started barking back and had a conversation with it for about five minutes. I drug the deer back to the truck and while Bezubic and I were saying goodbye, a yote came right up to the front of my expedition...in the headlights smelling the deer on the roof rack. the guns were cased so we couldn't blast it. I'd be walking your back yard with a 22 auto.
 
There have been many pets that have fallen dead to coyote poison around here. Poison bait doesn't discriminate on its victims. I would not recommend it.

I hope Drake mends well. Is the yard fenced? Wild critters are one of the hazards of living in the West. I have seen coyotes walking down main street as I leave for duck hunting.

I jumped what I thought was a raccoon, when took our dogs out the other week, they were on leashes. The critter climbed a plum tree behind my jeep. I took the dogs inside and got a flashlight to check it out. Wasn't a coon but a moose eating the plums out of the tree 20 feet a away. It was laying behind the jeep then jumped up and started munching on the fruit. I have since put a bit brighter porch light in.
 
I very clearly remember the first coyote I saw in western Minn and it wasn't that long ago. Last year I saw one "rugged out" in the middle of the freeway not 10 miles from down town Mpls. (In Edina on Hwy 100). They do need to be taught some respect but until they eat a few pets in town nothing will happen. Hope Drake mends well and some day gets revenge
 
Fascianting that your Dad was raised in Kinston.Kinston is about 20 miles from where I live. One my favorite places to shop for duck hunting and fishin tackle is the Neuse Sport Shop in Kinston. Tell him hi for me next time you talk.

91 year old Dad doesn't remember yodel dogs , but a retired animal control officer that I freqeuntly go fishing with says that ther are right many in Pitt County and that they live trap and the execute (ok Peta people Euthanize) every year.The coyotes are usually not the object of the trapping but are caught incidentally to dogs. If one ventures into my yard I have some vitamin oo's waiting for him.

If you ever get back to the ancestral homeplace I'll be happy to take you Duck Hunting if it's during the season.

Best,
Harry
 
Gregg,

Glad to hear that Drake is going to mend. Take him for a boat ride and he will feel better.

My best,

Don
 
pete,
no , actually none of the pics are.
No kids , just a couple mini long haired dasch's .
 
I'd sure hunt a few coyotes in my backyard and soon. Otherwise, the next encounter might not end so well. I was in a goose pit last year and we had a coyote come in to check out the decoys. At 15 yards, he got checked out.
 
there seem to be alot of coyotes around my area this year. I have had 3 run ins with coyotes this season the first was in early goose. I keep my trailer with full bodies in my buddies grave pit and I was hitching it up to go hunting- as I was doing so I look over a see this mangy ass coyote standing 20 yards from me . He was just standing there looking at me. I nonchalantly walked to the back of my suburban opened up the back grabbed my shotgun popped in a 2 oz BB turned around and he was still standing there- blamo dead as a doornail . On the way out I see his buddy standing in the middle of the farm road that leads to the gravel pit, I was thinking no way is this little bastard gonna sit still and let me shoot him- sure enough I got to the back of the suburban grabbed the shotgun loaded it up. He stuck around for a bit and started trotting away but I managed to stop him with my goose call-blamo two coyotes in 10 minutes !!!! ( What does that say about my short reed technique!! )
Sunday I was pheasant hunting about a mile from the same area in a thick cattail slew. I was walking on the frozen pond and Rollie (my dog) was in the cattails rooting around for roosters all of a sudden this coyote come bolting threw the cattails. He saw me on the edge and bolted off the other way totally took me by surprise. I could hear him coming and see the tops of the cattails moving but I thought it was Rollie then we made eye contact an I was like hey ”what the hell is that” I didn’t get a shot took a second to figure out what just happened. Once the bird season is over I am going to come back with the 22-250 an a e-call.
A couple of years back a buddy of mine was spring turkey hunting and was calling a gobbler in. He could hear it gobbling closer and closer. He thought for sure it was right behind him. While he was looking the other way a coyote came in a stole his hen decoy. He turned around just in time to see it running off with his decoy. He didn't shoot the coyote but the gobbler came in 10 minutes later,which he killed, it was a really nice bird 24lbs. and a 9 inch beard. I don't know if I would have choose that route. Sound like your dog is ok- I am glad.
 
happy to hear your Drake is alright! is always sucks when our furry friends get hurt! couple months ago my Jessie(choc. lab) got bit by snake...twice! damn near killed her, if my wife wouldnt have been outside to hear her cry im sure she would have. but after some pain pills, an overnight stay at the vets, IV's, and a $750 anti-venon shot, she was the same old goofy bird fetcher! ive bought trucks for less than that vet bill, but she was worth it!!! take care Drake, get well soon! Austin&Jessie!
 
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