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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

> The question of coyotes can kill large dogs has come up on the
> Rottweiler list I'm on. Anybody know of any actual attacks on bigger
> dogs?

I live in a coyote-infested area and my mother, who lives about an
hour's drive away, has even more in her neighborhood. Before I got my
LGD, an Anatolian named Louie, I had them in the front yard in the
middle of the day. (Previously, I'd had Komondorok and before that
mastiffs, and had no coyote problem aside from hearing their yipping
in the distance on a moonlit night.)

Mom tried to grow melons a few yards from her front door, but the
coyotes ate them all (she knows it was coyotes because she caught them
in the act). Neither of us have had our large dogs attacked (and her
dogs at the time didn't see the sense in running off the coyotes). I
was concerned about Louie being the lone guard dog, but his presence
seems to have established a coyote-free zone. Mom has a single dog now
too, a GSD-Chesapeake cross and until last year she had a GSD as well.

I rarely lose cats even though several insist on hunting at a distance
from the house (despite the fact that the barn is well stocked with
mice and a few rats -- though Louie is death on rats and so are the
border collies). Louie is generally sitting at a high point surveying
the area, and occasionally he'll rip off in hot pursuit. Mom hasn't
been able to keep cats since the coyotes have become rampant.

I imagine that a hungry pack of coyotes could overcome even a large
dog, but coyotes -- like criminals -- tend to go where the pickings
are easiest, and for coyotes this is fat country. Why confront 200 lbs
of angry tooth and muscle if you can pick off a cocker spaniel at the
next place? Louie doesn't care for canines he doesn't know, and tried
really hard to rip the door off my sister's car when she brought her
little mutt by for a visit once.

The late, great Mollie, a collie mix who adopted us, a few weeks after
we moved here, was deathly afraid of coyotes. When she heard them she
crammed herself into a corner on the porch and sent the mastiffs out
to confront the enemy (which they did with a good deal of zeal, though
they never caught one).

Marie