Baker Beach Pomerian Killed by Coyotes
A Pomeranian who was being walked by two dog owners along with their other two dogs was snatched and killed by a pack of Coyotes. You can view the ABC reporting of this story here:
This is obviously a very sad situation but there are a couple of things that would have prevented this from happening:
- Keep your dogs on leash. The reporting seems to indicate the dog was not on leash and therefore was easily snatched and taken away. Coyotes generally do not attack people so if your dog is right next to you, the chances of them coming close enough to take your dog are less.
- Small dogs should not be taken to areas where predators are present. Pomeranians are 3-7lbs. Coyotes are closer to 30lbs (officially) but well fed large coyotes in my area appear to be closer to the 40-50lb range. A wild animal that much larger than a prey size dog isn’t a fair fight – it’s an execution.
- If you want to go into areas with a large coyote presence carry pepper spray which you can buy anywhere:
Pepper Spray (Paid Link)*
4. Get a bigger dog. I know – you love your tiny dog but they are more fragile and the toy breeds are just harder to take care of because literally anything could kill them accidental or not.
More broadly speaking, California seems to have an increasing number of coyote attacks on pets which is going to continue to happen without some sort of larger measures taken to decrease the coyote population. I would definitely recommend culling the coyote population in California, particularly in the higher population areas. Coyotes are not endangered and can survive basically anywhere so push the population back out a little further into the more rural areas.
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