Don’t make coyotes the bad guys.
[If your cat or small dog is currently missing, please don’t read the following article. It won’t help you now. This article is intended for people who don’t currently have a lost pet.]
Coyotes are wonderful animals, if you think about it. They are dogs that stay out of our way and provide ecosystem services for free. Without coyotes, we would be up to our necks in rabbits and rodents. Coyotes eat excess fruit from trees, which falls on the ground and would be a nuisance if coyotes didn’t clean it up. Coyotes live near you, sometimes in your backyard, but certainly no more than a mile from your home. They quietly go about their business in the most urban areas, providing their benefits to all of us. Coyotes certainly are no threat to you personally. If you take simple precautions, they will not be a threat to your pets.
If a coyote killed my cat or small dog, I would probably want to kill them all. This anger would be misplaced. If a coyote killed my pet, it would be because I was inattentive, or because an accident allowed my cat or dog to get out unattended, exposing my pet to dangers unnecessarily. Every single day, a dog or a cat in Western Washington is killed by a car. No one ever thinks that cars, or their drivers, are intentionally seeking out pets to run over. No one ever sets out on a mission to destroy all cars (although that might be a good thing). If a pet is killed or injured in traffic, most people would rightly conclude that the solution would be to keep pets away from traffic. Keep them in the house, on leashes, in fenced yards. Keep your pets safe from cars. We all get that. Why won’t people take the same precautions to keep their pets safe from coyotes?
I have dissected more coyote scat than anyone I know, possibly more than anyone in the world, unless perhaps there is a graduate student studying the diets of coyotes. Usually, coyote scat contains the fur and bones of rabbits and rodents, sometimes fruit pits, sometimes grass or garbage. I have dissected coyote scat that contained the remains of cats and small dogs. Since they consume everything, it’s not unusual for the fur of a cat or dog to pass through a coyote and come out looking almost exactly as it did before. Dissecting coyote scat has allowed me to solve the mystery of certain missing pets. One time, my search dog, Mu, located coyote scat that had a microchip in it. I used my scanner to confirm that the missing cat had, in fact, been consumed by a coyote. While we were searching for another missing cat, we found coyote scat all over the place in the area where the cat might be, but it contained pits from the fruit trees in the area, indicating the coyotes had a plentiful diet, collecting fruit off the ground, and had less incentive to go after a cat.
In certain areas, it appears that a coyote, or some coyotes, will begin to target cats and small dogs, and over a period of weeks or months, that area will see a sharp increase in fliers for missing pets on the local telephone poles and mailboxes. My theory, though I haven’t proven it, is that coyotes can get started on taking domestic animals when they find a cat or small dog that has been hit and killed by a car. Coyotes definitely do go after road kill, which is usually possums and sometimes deer. They may be introduced to thinking of pets as food if they find one that has been hit by a car. If you start to notice an increase in lost pet fliers in your area, keep an extra close eye on your pet.
Another situation that seems to attract coyotes to take pets is when a cat or dog that is normally indoors most of the time starts crying, meowing or barking, to attract the attention of the the owners to come and find them or let them into the house. These distress calls can draw a coyote in, instinctively, and they might find a pet to be easy prey, revealing their location and distress, too good of an opportunity for a hungry coyote to pass up. People who hunt coyotes, which I certainly don’t approve of, will attract them with recordings of the calls of a distressed rabbit. This has proven to be a very effective method of luring coyotes. It wouldn’t really be surprising if the distress calls of a cat or small dog would attract a coyote. It’s what they are wired to do. If your cat or small dog escapes the house, make every effort to recover them quickly, to minimize the risk.
In 99% of the lost cat cases I have worked, the owner of the missing cat was told by at least one person that they shouldn’t even bother looking for their cat because it was likely taken by coyotes. Although it is possible that a coyote took the missing cat, it is actually one of the least likely scenarios. It is more common for a cat to be taken in by someone with good intentions than it is for a lost cat to become the victim of a coyote. However, if it seems to be such common knowledge that cats are taken by coyotes, why aren’t people speaking up before the cat goes missing? If you would say to someone whose cat is missing, “A coyote probably got your cat,” then why wouldn’t you talk to that neighbor when you see their cat outdoors and tell them about the threat of coyotes, and urge them to keep them indoors and safe? If you weren’t willing to speak up before the pet went missing, then go ahead and keep your speculation to yourself if someone comes around looking for a lost pet. Statistically, their cat probably wasn’t taken by a coyote, and it is never helpful to tell a cat’s owner that their cat is probably dead, unless you have proof.
I have a small dog, 13 pounds. He is in the house 23.5 hours a day. When I take the four dogs out for a walk, 13-pound Fozzie is permitted a couple of minutes to go into the bushes near the house. He has already gone to the bathroom in every spot within range of a leash, and he needs to go just a bit farther away to find a new place. During those few minutes, I am nearby, keeping watch. If it’s after dark, he is wearing his coyote vest. Mu and Tino, my 85-pound and 105-pound dogs are nearby. Both of them are highly experienced with coyotes, and undoubtedly would alert me if one was nearby. I have WiFi cameras looking out on both sides of the house, to see if coyotes are passing through. Fozzie wears an Apple AirTag so I can pinpoint his location under the rhododendrons. Every time we come in after a walk, I do a headcount, making sure I see all four dogs, and that I didn’t accidentally leave one out by thinking I had let them in except it was really the previous walk. I have redundant measures to keep Fozzie safe. Altogether, the precautions I take with Fozzie are not burdensome. Knowing what I know about coyotes, after 14 years of having to tell people that their cat or small dog was likely taken by a coyote based on the evidence, I am very careful to always make sure Fozzie is safe.
If you have a cat, please make every effort to keep your cat indoors at all times.
If your cat absolutely must go outside, please don’t put a bell on their collar.
Build a catio for your cat, so he can be outdoors but contained.
Put a six-foot fence around your yard, with a coyote roller on the top.
If you have a dog under 22 pounds, always go outside with your dog, preferably on a leash. Don’t take your eyes off your dog for a moment until you get back in the house.
Please do get a Coyote Vest for your small dog.
If you have visitors to your house, be sure they know the protocols for keeping your pet safe.
If you have an elderly dog, with poor vision and hearing, or with limited mobility, stay with your dog at all times when they are outside.
Get WiFi cameras to watch your yard, so you will know if coyotes are passing through.
Don’t have a compost pile unless it is contained and covered, to keep wildlife away.
Don’t feed animals outdoors if you can avoid it. If you must feed outdoors, pick up all the food bowls during hours of darkness.
Don’t ever feed wildlife, even if they are cute, such as raccoons.
If you have bird feeders, try to keep the spilled seed cleaned up, to avoid attracting predators.
I hope you never lose a pet to a predator, but if you lose a cat or a small dog to a coyote, don’t blame the coyote. You have the power to keep your pet safe.
There is a researcher at Seattle U studying coyote scat to understand their diet and training a bunch of people to be community scientists to collect and send them the scat they found.
I always tell people who feed birds to only put enough out each morning that the feeder is empty at sunset and the ground feeders [pigeons, juncos, etc] have cleaned up the spilled seed thoroughly. It is a little more time consuming but not much.
Great info! I saved this short podcast a couple of years ago about coyote behavior. https://anchor.fm/wildlifeforyou/episodes/Wiley-Coyote----Super-Genius-emrmsb