Yard intruder

[catspaw66]

About 4:30 this afternoon, I saw all the cats running in growling while I was making supper.  I grabbed the house cannon (20 ga. pump shotgun), walked out on the back porch and saw a large coyote about 15 feet away from me walking toward the porch. I quietly opened the screen door and when he turned around and started walking off, I fired a shot about 6-7 feet behind him.  I didn't want to hit him, just scare the puckey out of him. I bet he won't be back soon.

And for those who think I was wrong to do this, remember that a coyote will tear a screen to get at food, in this case my cats.

 

[peaches08]

Unfortunately, if the coyote sees your cats as a potential meal he'll come back. That's a part of farming I don't miss.

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

We deal with coyotes where we live too. I have seen them under my pear tree at one in the afternoon pulling pears off the trees.

 

[catspaw66]

Unfortunately, if the coyote sees your cats as a potential meal he'll come back. That's a part of farming I don't miss.

They usually don't come that close to the house. This one was evidently an alpha male. He was almost the size of a German Shepherd.  I have many shells to fire in the air if he comes back. I could have put him down if I had wanted to, but his kind was here before my kind was.  I will settle with scaring him off.

 

[denice]

That is unusual for the part of the country your in.  I didn't know this until I seen it on a nature program but the coyotes in the northeastern part of the country are larger and less skittish.  They think that at some point the coyotes and wolves mixed.  The same is true in Canada.  I grew up in Kansas and I don't remember seeing one that large.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Yikes!  I've heard them at night at my in-laws.  Their area is semi-rural and they are in a bit of a valley; things echo.  

 

[AbbysMom]

Scary.

I've also seen them in my backyard during the day. We often hear them at night.

 

[Winchester]

That is scary.....I hope it doesn't come back. Or that you're home when it does!

 

[di and bob]

I live IN town and have deer, raccoons, possums, and foxes that come into my yard and try to get something to eat. I guess that's the price we pay when we've got a lot of wooded areas in town. I saw my security light light come on one night and there were 5 deer in my yard! I always go charging out of the house yelling, but they always come back!

 

[dejolane]

The only animals I get are birds and cats hanging around my patio door.. We live in a apartment section with 4 connected together. Our patio is very small but when they come near our sliding glass doors, Bella & Thunder go crazy. When we lived in a trailer there were raccoons  on our porch getting into our trash for eggs.

 

[Winchester]

We have a lot of small critters in the neighborhood: chipmunks, squirrels, bunnies, groundhogs, foxes, raccoons, and such. A lot of vulture-type birds. Bears and deer.

When we first found Tabby, she was just a tiny little kitten and when we found out where she came from, we were amazed that she made it over that hill to our neighbor's driveway without an owl or raptor getting her. Or a bobcat. We think that's what happened to her sister because we looked and looked, once we realized she had a sister and never found her. Tabby was one lucky little girl.

 

[jcat]

Hopefully it won't be back, but I wouldn't count on it.

We don't have coyotes here, but there are plenty of foxes. We lost our hedgehog to one a couple of years ago, and he was behind a 2-meter fence. The foxes were digging under the fence, so I blocked access with cinder blocks. It didn't help - they just started climbing the fence. They're so used to humans that they'll trot right past you as you're walking down the street.

 

[catspaw66]

Oh, I'm sure he will be back at least once more. They congregate and sing at night about 40 yards away from the house. They will keep it up for 30 minutes or so, until one of us around here fires off a shot into the air.  My neighbor had to shoot a big bear in the hiney with some birdshot when it was trying to get into his MIL's screen door.  Most of us around here don't hunt the local animals, just scare them off.

I have raccoons come on to the back steps quite often. I also see possums, armadillos, the occasional skunk, deer and wild turkeys several evenings a week. A few days ago, I was getting Sugar in from the back porch, noticed she was staring intently at something, and saw a half-grown raccoon sitting on a fallen branch about 10 feet away checking Sugar out. That's why when they put up a fuss, I know it is something big, like the bear that visited last year.

 

[angels mommy]

Oh my, that is scary! Keep the kitties safe! ........ Yikes!

 

[kookycats]

Keep everybody safe! I don't know how I would have reacted to that --- panic I guess. And we don't have any guns here.

 

[catspaw66]

I am fairly used to seeing small and large wild animals in the yard. I even saw a lynx once. He was marking the bumper of one of the cars, and when I opened the window and told him how beautiful he was, he looked at me for about a minute, then sauntered off.

I only have the weapons to drive off intruders, both 4 and 2 legged.  This is an area where meth dealers come to make their deals away from the eyes of law enforcement.