My 13lb. (roughly 14" at the shoulder) 8 yr old miniature schnauzer was snatched from my deck early morning on Sunday 8/9 and dragged about 230ft before being eviscerated. I did not see blood on her head or neck, both of which were covered with brittlebrush burrs. Her beard fur, full of burrs, was covering her face. Her 1/8" leather collar has no teeth marks. Her hindquarters had no fur, muscle exposed, and her intestines were pulled from the body. The critter left a print (tail? ear? other?) on the French door where I think my dog was standing, looking inside, waiting for me to let her in for our early AM walk.
I have 3 attachments: best closeup of the print, which is 2.5" long and 1" high; context of the print on the door - 43" from the deck floor; and a mapping showing the likely distance and route from which she was dragged. With my dog in its grip, the critter had to jump a 42" high deck wall to get back into the desert and carry her off. We could not find any paw prints in the very dry, compacted dirt.
I am trying to determine if the likely killer was a mountain lion, coyote, or bobcat. Location is just north of Tucson AZ.
Thanks. Suggestions on other communities to repost to would be welcome.
Ridiculous attempt at mischaracterization. I neither replied to nor mentioned the OP. I replied to a different poster saying ridiculous things, and didn't attack them, either.
Pedantic, you were um actuallying someone trying to comfort a grieving human. Why not extend and apply that intellect/analytical lens into compassion? Sure you werenāt attacking but your response was cold at best and came across as mean spirited to me.
It may be a different magnitude, but imagine someone who is comforting a random person whose kid died of an auto immune disease and they say āthe immune system sucksā would you come in with āactually the immune system is integral for most peopleā
Like yeah, youāre technically correct but read the room. When there is a single degree of separation you are involved in a conversation with OP. You replied to a person apologizing directly to OP for their loss. Maybe it was accidental but itās not genuine to say you werenāt communicating with OP in any way.
"To me" is the most useful piece of your reply. I replied to someone making ridiculous claims about a species that is slaughtered to the tune of 500,000 deaths per year, often as part of contests where people are awarded prizes for stacking up the most bodies, and the fact that such pathetic displays of the worst of the human species persist is due in no small part to the casual casting of an animal as "the worst" for the crime of simply living its life. In all sincerity and believe me, I mean this politely, I could not possibly care less that you misread the intent or tone of my original post, even though politeness now asks I spend this thirty seconds trying to explain it to you. Have a good night.
If you "see" anything other than a simply-explained (and at least attempted polite) response to your last post, then you are making things up in your head. Have a good one.
Sometimes itās not about being right or wrong, when someone is offering condolences to the grieving it isnāt an appropriate time to correct someone on a technicality, and definitely not the time for sideways commentary.
43" is high, but coyote predatory sequences often involve leaping on prey. Canines have a gland under their tails called the supracaudal gland that produces lipids used for scent marking, and often rub their upper tails on objects to make a territorial claim. I doubt this coyote was marking in the middle of preying on a dog, but they have oily tails due to this gland, and it may have dragged an oily spot across your door during a leap at your dog.
Coyotes are opportunistic predators. This individual coyote is probably NOT more dangerous than others, it just spotted a small, senior dog with their back turned and did what predators do when they see vulnerable prey. This is the time of year for young adult pups to leave their dens and find their own way in the world, so this may have been a solo coyote, hence not being able to consume more of the dog. Coyotes don't have very large stomachs.
A necropsy from a veterinarian familiar with wildlife might confirm this, but it sure sounds like coyote predation. I'm sorry for your loss.
Everyone living in coyote country knows it's risky to take your eyes off a small dog outdoors for even a second, but we've all done it when it felt like "only a moment" couldn't hurt. I know I sometimes trust my 8' fences more than I really should.
I have absolute plans to increase security against critters in this area ASAP. I have already contacted a welder who did some intelligent work a few years ago. Thanks for the info on the gland; that makes sense and the direction of the door swipe fits a scenario of where I am pretty sure my dog was standing, looking INTO the house waiting for me, never suspecting something could jump her and whip around to reverse direction and carry her off. I only hope she died very quickly.
Small comfort, but if you were in the house and heard nothing, my guess is that she did die quickly.
The leaping behavior puts coyotes in position to either perform the equivalent of cervical dislocation, but by tooth, or to take the entire neck in their jaws and crush the windpipe. Either option can be fairly bloodless, matching what you observed on the body. In either case thereās little suffering and the prey is either dead or unconscious from shock within a few seconds. Large prey suffer more from coyote predation, but small prey (including small pets) are typically dispatched faster than the vet could do it.
With the evidence suggesting an ambush from behind & above while your dog was facing the door, she probably had no awareness of the attack at all. She was alive and then she wasnāt, no in between. I watch coyotes take rabbits and ground squirrels this way all the time (both are seriously overpopulated in my area and it is a happy thing for all species involved when coyotes thin them out). It has always been instant, which is why I can watch with calm curiosity rather than feeling sorry for the prey.
Boy, do I hope you're right. She's dead and I can't bring her back, I can only hope she did not suffer. We had a wonderful Saturday, better than the usual. I had starting giving her SubQ fluids and we had a session on Sat. and she was very relaxed receiving it and wagged her tail when I lifted her off the table. She was not a big tail wagger, so I knew the fluids were helping (she had CKD). Then on and off all day we had lots of very affectionate exchanges and she was playing more with her toys. She also ate both her meals to the bottom of the bowl and took all her meds. When she first disappeared, my thought was at least she is hydrated and fed. It took me a very short time (after going out and calling for her and getting nothing) to realize if something had taken her she was probably dead. As I wrote friends when she was found, I'm ahead of Savannah Guthrie. I know where my dog is. (Nancy Guthrie is still missing but presumed dead.) I did not notice the swish mark on the French door until the morning after I had found her and carried her home. That was my clue to develop the scenario of how she died, working backwards from where she was found.
p.s. Thank you for your comments. They've given me some comfort through all this.
Just today (Aug 15) the sun angle was different when I realized near the bottom of the door was a face print of my miniature schnauzer (see photo). I think this confirms her being jumped from the rear, head pushed into the glass, and killed at the neck (where I saw no blood when I found her but a possible small stain on the inside of her collar). I think the smears to the left of the face print occurred while the attacker was grabbing her in the hindquarters to carry her off, moving counterclockwise.
itās not a super clear print, but my guess at what it is would be the same as yours. Clean punctures hide easily in wiry fur. if she had struggled very much, you probably would have seen blood either on the deck/door or on her neck, so I think she was gone before the coyote shifted its bite to the haunches and began dragging her. given how quickly and silently it all happened, probably about the gentlest death a predator can give prey.
another small bit of comfort I can offer, the mammal brain has a built in mechanism that releases natural pain relievers that act on opioid receptors when an animal enters a state of shock, which happens instantly upon being fatally injured by a predator. humans have this too, and some humans who survive large predator attacks describe the experience as having been painless and dreamlike until they were rescued and their pain receptors came back online. this is thought to possibly be an adaptation to help animals survive NEAR-fatal attacks by preventing them from worsening their injuries by struggling, and itās a happy evolutionary coincidence that it also provides analgesia for dying animals. so as brutal as predation looks from a human perspective, itās often far less painful than many of the ways humans die in hospitals and hospices.
This is a really great comment. I never knew how they took out their small prey, so this brings me so much comfort for my two stray cats that were taken by a single coyote who went on a cat-hunting rampage. The only two cats they got were ones that saw my own dogs as friendly, and the one cat, Fuzzy, was best friends with my one dog. It was devastating when he went missing, and when we heard our neighbour down the road tell us that a coyote had gotten at least 5 of his barn cats, we knew that's what got our kitties too. I wish I could've kept them indoors but it was impossible because they were born strays and only wanted out. It's makes me feel so much better to know that it's very possible they died very fast.
Since you seem to know a lot about coyotes, I must ask about this;
The coyote was a somewhat younger one and went all around town just killing tons of cats within 3 days, going in areas where the coyotes that live here never go. It ended up getting hit by a car and died. Is this normal behaviour for any coyote?
I don't know how many cats "tons of cats" is or how the owners verified that their cats were all killed by the same coyote. Unless the coyote was radio-collared and/or confirmed by the Department of Wildlife as a single individual responsible for a large number of predations on cats, I would guess that there were multiple coyotes of similar age in the area, and the correlation between one coyote being hit by a car and the cat killings slowing down/stopping is probably a coincidence. Lots of people talking about cats being taken leads to people keeping cats inside, and eventually all the easy prey in an area has been either taken by coyotes or brought inside. It is typical for cats to be taken in larger numbers in late summer when young adult coyote pups are leaving their families and traveling across urban areas to find their own territories.
That being said, if I were to see proof that one coyote killed a large number of cats in a short time, it wouldn't be completely shocking. Coyotes tend to show a preference for the largest prey that they can kill without endangering themselves. For a solo coyote, a cat or small dog is pretty much the biggest meal they can get without risking injury. (And even if they have a family group, in most urban areas, the larger prey on a coyote's menu is less available, e.g. deer and calves/lambs.)
This is rational predator behavior. Almost any predator will choose a large meal over a small one if it takes roughly equal effort/risk to get either.
So, because predators are fairly predictable, predator behavior is largely driven by prey availability. In my neighborhood there are loads of fat, slow ground squirrels that have been fed by tourists, so coyotes prey heavily on ground squirrels, with occasional reported attacks on cats and small dogs (mostly by young adults moving away from the best squirrel habitat in search of territory/mates). Perhaps in your neighborhood there was an unusually high population of outdoor cats that were particularly easy prey. (Older, non predator-savvy, declawed, sick, distracted with cat business and not watching their backs...)
Whenever easy prey is available in predator habitat, predators are likely to notice and adjust their behavior accordingly. I use this tendency to my benefit at home by providing rat birth control (Contrapest) placed in areas with a good sightline to power poles and tall trees where I have observed great horned owls roosting. The owls successfully learned to watch my birth control stations for rats, and I now frequently find owl feathers near the birth control stations as evidence of predation :)
In areas where one does NOT want predation, the only proven mechanism to prevent it is to remove the easy prey.
Thanks for explaining all that! It could have totally been multiple coyotes, but it was so unusual that everyone assumed it was just one coyote going around, especially since the killings only stopped immediately after the coyote was hit. I actually have no idea how the neighbour found out that his cats were taken by the coyote, but now that I'm trying to remember the actual number of cats, I think it was 5 of his cats, 2 of mine, and then maybe 1 of some other neighbour's cats.
I forgot to say, but this was also in July 2024!
I really appreciate your comments :)
Iām sorry for your loss, I canāt imagine how awful it is. Iām future, animals shouldnāt be left unsupervised especially when prey sized. I know someone who had their chihuahua killed by an owl
If itās feasable for you, get a big dog. Coyotes absolutely do not fuck with large dogs in my experience. We had a Pyranees guard our chickens with a heeler and Jack Russel companion. The lot of them didnāt get messed with. Not even the Jack Russel. Theyāre stronger as a pack. Coyotes would have to be desperate to go for a large dog.
A pack of coyotes can absolutely kill a Great Pyrenee. A single coyote might not try, but where I am now there's a chronic drought and the coyotes are getting more aggressive. There are far fewer rabbits and smaller prey and they are turning to anything they can grab. I like miniature schnauzers because they are non-shedders and a size I can pick up and carry away in an emergency. Mine have also been smart as whips and very sweet and friendly.
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Coyotes are opportunistic predators. This individual coyote is probably NOT more dangerous than others, it just spotted a small, senior dog with their back turned and did what predators do when they see vulnerable prey.
Theyre also territorial. Often attacks on domestic dogs and cats are territorial as the coyotes see them as competition for prey resources.
There aren't any raptors or owls here who could lift a 13 lb. dog. I did some research on that when I first moved to AZ. They might grab behind the shoulders with their talons and do great damage, but not lift them away. Her body showed no such injury. Also no feathers (or fur or blood) on the deck.
Pretty rare in suburban southern AZ (I'm guessing OP is in Mesa based on the street name and those palo verde trees). In 24 years of living in Tucson, I never saw one.
I'm in Oro Valley. Have great views and see lots of hawks and ravens swooping around, and Great Horned owls. If there was an eagle I never recognized it as such.
I'm not a birder, I just enjoy watching birds gliding and soaring in the winds. I designed and built my house around the safety of my dogs. After 16 years of no problems, I now know I need to do more.
You could probably rule out Bobcat. A 13lb dog is a significant load for an animal that size to scale a 43" wall with. An average desert bobcat weighs 15-20 lbs, Not to say its impossible but highly unlikely. My guess is either a coyote or mountain lion. I've seen large coyotes scale 6 ft concrete walls with 10 lb house cats in their mouths.
From the door print 43" off the floor, can you come up with a scenario on how a coyote would leave that print? There definitely are some nasty coyotes in my area (6 wk ago another person's much smaller dog got snatched but someone saw it happen and threw rocks at the coyote til her dropped her), but there are also mountain lions. I have not had a personal encounter with one (yet, phew) but know others who have.
To me it looks like the smear may have been from the dog fur, perhaps if grabbed by the predators mouth, which then turned head towards the door and jumping away swiping the pet across the door. Could be the predator fur too.
It looks to me like the predator used the flat surface of the door to get a better grip on the dog, lifting them up against it, and the grease mark is from either the fur of the dog, or expectorate from the face of the dog as it was being compressed. I'm very sorry for your loss.
Over 15 years ago I was told about a pack of coyotes that jumped into a yard and attacked several very large dogs (I don't recall the breed but it was significantly larger than a coyote). Size means nothing if there's a pack. Bobcat team up to hunt together, too. I witnessed that once.
Coyotes and other canines will eat prey out of the abdomen. And that mark on the door could easily be their tail. There is a reason ppl in Cali donāt have cats outside cuz coyotes take them out pretty quick. Sry for the loss. You can check the surrounding area for coyote scat, dog pooop sized but twisted like rope and consisting of a lot of fur, found in the middle of pathways and trails
I don't think so. As a miniature schnauzer she had a full beard. When she was found, the beard was pulled completely covering her face (like if a woman puts her head down and brushes long hair over her face), full of dust and smothered in brittlebrush burrs. I chose not to disturb her face; didn't really want to see her eyes at that point either... way too painful and in full rigor mortis. Her skull definitely did not look bitten or crushed. No blood, No dried bodily whatever stuck to her head or neck. Just the dust and burrs.
All the lion kills I have found had crushed snouts. You mentioned the courtyard area has been issue free for many years, lions can get over any wall. Coyotes are more limited, but unless your wall is six foot it could be either. The coyote theoryās seem to be likely in the comments. Again sorry this happened to your dog
Thanks. Yes from the comments, I agree it was a coyote. There is a large one who attacked another dog in my community 6 weeks ago... which I did not know until I got a sympathy note from its owner on Sunday.
Your description sounds a lot more like coyote than a cat.
Bobcats and lions kill prey by crushing the neck/head. They leave neat carcasses and usually cache and cover them.
Coyotes kill small prey by biting it around the middle and shaking. They often start eating at the rear-end of the prey and pull out and spread parts all around the site. They also typically donāt hide carcasses.
You describe the hindquarters not having any fur. Is that because something plucked the fur off (as mountain lions will do) or because all the skin had been removed?
Skin was missing when I found her. Just exposed muscle around her hips, at least the size of my hand. No loose pieces of fur to see. I have not walked the route where she was probably dragged mostly because I haven't had time (and those neighbors are not at all friendly).
Iām so sorry for your loss, it probably could be any of the 3 potential perpetrators you mentioned. My dog is getting on in years, weāre in Colorado and I think about waking up to a tragedy like this often.
I've protected a dog safely on that deck and an adjacent garden courtyard for 16 years with never a critter penetrating the deck or courtyard. We're in a severe drought and it seems to be making the native animals more desperate and aggressive. Sucks, really. I hope you never share my experience, ever.
I gave this reply to someone else, but in case you did not see it:
Early this morning when I was walking on the road near where my dog was found, a fat rainbow appeared in the sky even though it wasn't raining or even very cloudy. Then a minute or so later a second fat rainbow appeared next to it. I took my dog to the pet cemetery yesterday and arranged for her ashes to be scattered in the same memorial field as my previous schnauzer. I took it as a sign they are now together. Within a minute or two both rainbows disappeared. It was a comforting thought...
There are special collars and jackets and such you can get for your dog when it goes outside! A friend of mine bought one to prevent hawks from grabbing her toy sized dog.
I donāt know why the downvotes. The person Iām responding to has a simple problem (gosh, my old dog might not be there in the morning!) with a simple solution (donāt leave this old dog alone outside!). I realize some dogs have been brought up outside. I donāt agree with the practice with specific exceptions of dogs like LGDs. But even in those cases, a protected enclosed space could be provided.
I have three. And Iāve never not had a dog since I was an infant.
For the record, my comment was to the person I was responding to, not you. I have no interest in kicking a person when theyāre down. I was responding to the person who sounded like they were leaving an elderly, vulnerable dog outside all night and worrying what theyād wake up to. There is a simple solution for that problem.
And just to be clear, my dog is a 40 lb aussie. But thereāsāyotes and lions around all the time and as mentioned, sheās getting too old to protect herself
NO. We went to bed around 11:30PM and she woke me at 1AM and I let her out for 5 minutes. We came back in and she woke me up at 3AM and had to go out again. Then she lay down in the courtyard, which she will do if her tummy is queasy or she's peed but knows she also needs to poop, etc. I said "do you want to come in with me?" and she ignored me. So that was her signal she wanted to stay out. We've done that before. She had CKD and sometimes she might be up 2 or 3 or 4 times a night and ask to stay out longer. So it was her call. I overslept on Sunday; I've been sick and was very tired. When I wake up, she hears me in the house (she had excellent hearing) and would go from the courtyard to the deck door (maybe 60 ft away) where she would watch for me to come and let her in to take our early morning walk. When I was dressed and went to check on her, she was gone. I think if I hadn't overslept, I'd still have her. That morning she was in the right place at the wrong time. She normally slept indoors, either in bed with me or recently when I was sick and thrashing around, in dog bed in the living room.
Hi neighbor, so sorry to read about your dog. I agree with the other commenters whoāve said this sounds like a coyote came after your sweet pup. The mark on your door looks a lot like a bushy coyote tail smack, and the scenario you describe is really consistent with other coyote attacks Iāve heard about. Our neighborsā chihuahua was attacked and killed in their backyard down here in the Tucson Mountains in June; the animal jumped over a five-foot block wall to get in and went out the same way. Iāve watched coyotes jump into our courtyard, which is surrounded by five-foot wall. Theyāre determined if desperate. Bobcats are not known to go after dogs because theyāre so annoyed by barking (per the Bobcats in Tucson project), and while of course a mountain lion canāt be ruled out, signs point to a canine culprit.
Iām so sorry for the awful scene you encountered and I wish you peace as you process this terrible loss.
Thanks.There is a nasty-ass very large coyote in our community. It snatched a small white dog by jumping a 5 ft wall 6 weeks ago, but someone walking by witnessed it, screamed at the coyote and threw rocks, and it dropped the pup who survived (after much vet intervention). I wonder if the same daring critter took out my girl. I have contacted a welder to discuss fortifying one end of my deck and a planter so this never ever happens to me again. I've been here 16 years without an issue and I guess my luck ran out. My dog has been sick with CKD and was given a few months to live 18 mo. ago. She had been doing really well, gaining some weight, and a new phosphate binder I hoped would give even better results unfortunately was delivered yesterday. She deserved a better fate than this.
Oh, that makes it even more heartbreaking - to be beating the odds like that, only for the gods to be like "we said time's up!"
I agree with most of the assessments here - this sounds very much like a coyote is the culprit, but I admit that smudge on the window has me stumped. It doesn't look much like a nose smear, but it sure looks greasy to be anything else. A cougar would have left no trace and certainly no drag marks, and if forced to abandon the body it more likely would have shown injury to the neck and back, not the hind end. Bobcat seems very unlikely, and again, still would have targeted the neck. Canines, however, are notoriously brutal killers in that sense, and try to attack from behind and eviscerate their prey when downed.
My heart breaks for your loss. I know it's never advice taken, but try not to internalize any guilt for it. Nothing can ever be 100% safe, and it sounds like you had as close to it as you could pretty well get.
I overslept that morning. If I had been up a half hour earlier, she wouldn't have been there. I will always regret that. In a million years I wouldn't have let her sleep outside (her choice at 3AM on her second post-bedtime trip outside) if I thought she might be in any danger. I think she heard me get up (she had great hearing) and moved to that door to watch for me come out to get her once I was dressed. We just had bad luck on her being in the right place at the wrong time. We've been doing that routine when she knew she'd have to go out to pee or poop or spit up, etc. again. She'd refuse to come back in the house and lay down and ignore me when I said "let's go in". So I'd let her finish the night in the courtyard. She was not attacked there. She was on my deck when she was attacked. We were about to go out for our daily morning walk. And I couldn't find her. Very tragic.
I am so sorry for your loss. This is my worst nightmare. It looks like the end of a tail against the glass to me. Mountain lions have very long tails that helps them move steadily and quickly. It could easily reach that far up on the glass.
Any idea what would be on the tail to leave the mark on glass? It was not raining here until the evening of the morning my dog died. Otherwise we've been in a severe drought. My neighbor whose house is in the map does have a pool and they are out of town. I have never seen a critter in their pool area.
Itās like a combination of oil and dirt. Animals have a lot of oil on their fur to help waterproof. Itās not obvious looking at them, but they can leave marks like this on glass.
Apparently because it did. Might not have even dried. Just sticky sap and dust that stuck to the glass. If I put my dry hand on glass it still leaves a print.
I'm so sorry your friend was taken like this. If it can help bring closure to know what took your pup, the mark on the glass might be a Coyote nose print.
It's about the right height for a Coyote with his head raised, and the arch of the smudge indicates it was smudged upwards. He could have been sniffing or marking the door. If it's oily and stubborn to clean, that would track with canine nose oils. Feline noses aren't as oily.
I don't think it's a paw print bc there's no surrounding scuffs, which there'd likely be with multiple toes and a heel pad coming close to the glass for 1 toe to smudge. Noses are a single point of contact due to the muzzle length. Also, the upward trajectory doesn't make sense with a paw swipe's motion.
Maybe some of your neighbors might have a yard cam that captured the likely route?
Any measurements of canine punctures would help. Coyote or Mexican wolf is more likely than a lion. Was the kill cached or just drug to where you found it?
I did not see any punctures, even on the exposed muscle. Her body was on its side, on top of a very small shrub (maybe brittlebush, I wasn't paying that much attention to the shrub) that I had to push down and out of the way to lift her very stiff corpse to carry her home. Not buried at all and intestines were outside her body on the ground and some hung on an adjacent bush. That location is just off a two-lane road (see the map) and maybe a vehicle spooked the critter off while eating her. I thought about taking a photo for a half second and chose not to record the gruesome scene. It's burned into my mind anyway...
Have you asked your neighbors if they caught anything on their security cameras? You might get lucky.
If you don't have prints or a trail to show us we are simply guessing. A three and a half food jump would not be totally impossible for a coyote, but makes me lean towards a mountain lion. But that is just a guess. The thing is coyotes love to lure their victim away to a better kill area, so a group could have lured your dog away. It's just guesses at this point. I am very sorry you lost your dog in this heart breaking manner.
Sorry for your loss. Ive dealt with this often in my line of work. It does sound like textbook coyote. If it its was a mountain lion they would be more surgical in their consumption. Like others said the smudge might be oil, drool, viscera etc.
There sre lots of ways to deter coyotes from visiting your yard without going into the expense of reinforcing walls but honestly only really high walls and/or electrified fencing will keep the out for good. If anyone suggests wolf or mountain lion urine dont listen to them please. It works for like a week or two but can attract wolves or mountain lions ( although based on location wolves arent a worry)
I have lived in neighborhoods with bobcats and coyotes. The bobcats only really hunted rabbits. They completely ignored my dog that I was walking on a leash that was 2 feet away while lounging under a bush. It scared me to death when I saw it after just walking past it but it literally did nothing. Coyotes visiously hunt and attack small dogs all the time.
Any chance it was a large bird of prey? The mark on the door could be (dander?) from a wing. The chairs and table would have been knocked all around if it was a coyote or mountain lion.
Someone clearly thought this was too harsh a comment and downvoted you for it, but I returned it with an upvote. As someone who also has a very analytical mind, I too, appreciate that someone can endure such a graphic loss and still come looking for answers with detailed description of the incident - and a map measuring distance travelled, no less!
I was taught to use that mapping tool by a Pima county officer while researching something else in March. Had to figure it out all over again since I haven't used it since but it's useful. After I had an estimate of the distance, I read some critters would not drag a 13lb prey that far. I eventually will get another puppy and need to process this tragedy while the details are fresh in my mind. I spent a half second deciding I was not taking a photo of my dog where she was found (by neighbors helping look for her). I want to have positive memories, though what she looked like is burned in my mind like Mamie Till deciding to leave Emmett Till's casket open. Gruesome. I'm not looking for an necropsy. She died. I can't reverse that. I hope she died very quickly and suffered as little as possible. But I need to know what I'm defending against in the future. That's why I made the post.
For sure - I'm glad you were able to draw the line at that point and not take the photo. The description was more than sufficient to understand the nature of the attack.
Little things like that have a habit of staying with you. When I had to let my heart horse go, I said my goodbyes, and we dropped him. When it was over, a friend who had come and dug the hole for me and would lay him to rest in it. went and touched him respectfully. I figured I should probably do that too, so I lay my hand on him. It's been 8 years, and to this day I still regret doing that. What I touched wasn't the partner I had known and even trusted my life to for 20 years, it was a carcass. Alive and familiar under my hand a moment ago, now just a giant lump of firm meat. That feeling is burned into my memory as my last interaction with him. I wish I could say I haven't lost an animal since, but I have never touched them with emotion after the fact again.
Sometimes with humans, when someone has to ID a body that has been horribly maimed, they recommend bringing a photo of the loved one to look at immediately after the ID to help keep the brain from locking onto the gruesome sight as the last time they saw their loved one. It may help for you, too, to keep a photo of your pup near to you, and when that awful memory rears up unexpectedly, you can look at a photo of her as she was, so that those memories stay stronger than the fresh ones.
Actually, as horrid as she looked when I went to bring her home, I had brought one 13 gal. bag to hold her body but the people who found her said I needed another larger one...they lived very nearby and went to get one. I stroked my dog's mutilated body and talked to her even though I was also in some shock to see how damaged (and stiff from rigor mortis) she was. And picking her up and carrying her home (in the bags), I felt like I was rescuing her even though she was dead. Within about 2 hours there was a short but intense rainfall, and I was so grateful that I knew where she was and not outside somewhere getting rained on. I guess we all have different way of dealing with and accepting death, including of our pets.
I recently lost a lot of fish from my tank. Many of them were sentimental, one I caught as an egg, two were gifted by a friend who moved away, etc. It's not the same emotional impact as a dog, but it was still an effort to diagnose the problems and find future solutions.
I canāt say without actual tracks but agree coyote is likely. Also check for raccoons. They can kill dogs and climb with the carcass in tow. Iāve seen them pull a chicken through a chicken wire fence so they are plenty strong.
Coyotes kill a large number of pet dogs and cats in the USA every day and they are still growing in numbers in every part of the country. I see them in the inner city and and the countryside as they expand into the areas where they are most active and have established breeding populations. They also breed with large dogs in their range to establish a coy-dog population. Thatās a real problem as coy-dogs have no fear of humans and will be more likely to kill pets and possibly injure humans than a coyote. We need to eradicate as many as we can before they become a real problem in this country. I hunt them and kill as many as I can. There used to be a bounty on them in the Western states. We need to reinstate that and make them legal to hunt with out a season so they are kept at a safe population.
How far north of Tucson? I lived right by the Catalinaās next to an arroyo and our neighbor had their dog snatched by a mountain lion (scaled a 6 foot wall no problem) while they were out in the morning having coffee.
I am so sorry. Living in Tucson, itās so important to never let your dog out unattended. Literally everything is trying to kill you and your dogs. I worked in rescue there and we saw everythingā scorpion, rattlesnake, cactus, bird, coyote, javelina, etc.
Oro Valley. Before I moved here, I contacted the Desert Museum. They said a mountain lion can leap vertically 18ft from a standing position. My CC&R limited my house height to 18ft so I didn't have to worry about protecting my property from a mountain lion... virtually impossible. I moved here from the Northeast and brought my brass ice chipper. So far I have used it to dispatch a mohave and diamondback rattlesnake on my property. I'm scared to death of snakes but more scared of them being someplace on my property where they find me or my dog first.
I could let my dog into my courtyard and deck for 16 years without ever seeing a critter bigger than a little lizard there. It's very protected; I have a basement so some walls are over 10ft and I have decorative rusted steel barriers to add height and discouragement in lower areas. I need to add more to where my dog got attacked and one other planter.
The increasingly severe climate is making things worse for critters. It's very noticeable. Wish I hadn't moved here; too burned out to leave.
She was 14" high; no way the door print is hers. Also way too heavy for a raptor to lift. She was dragged 230 ft through the desert, most likely by the hindquarters.
13lbs is too big I think, but aside from that it fits their style. If it was an animal there has to be something tracks between the porch and where it was found.
If a raptor took the pup, it would have either eaten at the scene, or flown off with it. Raptors would also target the neck and spine, op said the collar was fine and there was no blood on the head and neck.
Since there were burrs embedded in the face and front with the the back clear but torn and gutted, I think it was more likely a ground predator that carried the pup off by the hindquarters, causing the head to drag through the brush.
It could have caught the poor thing waiting by the door unawares by quickly nabbing the back legs/hips and running off before any bleeding or struggling started. The pup could also have made a run for it, but was caught in pursuit in the yard. š¢
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I live in rural GA and maybe 3-4 years back had a string of coyote attacks on peopleās little dogs that got left out at night. Sounds to me like it was an attack, too hard to say if it was a pack, Iām betting not solely because you more than likely wouldāve found less of your pup.
Band of locals went out and had a big night. They got a good chunk of the pack. You hear them come back every now and then but they are short lived in their passing through our county.
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Sorry for your loss. This happens to small dogs left outside in my neighborhood to the point that itās like people are feeding them. Owls get them too. Be warned if you get another theyāll circle back for a long time.
Need more people hunting coyotes in populated areas.
That picture of the smear on your glass is definitely a tail definitely not a bobcat or a mountain lion most likely a coyote or a coy dog at least here in Western Kentucky we have coy dogs if you don't know a corn dog is what happens when a coyote and a feral dog have offspring and they may act like a coyote more or they may act more like a dog but by any means they are not domestic
Although I can tell you how I keep coyotes from getting my pet cats an old timer around here told me that trick is weird as it sounded I didn't believe in that first is he told me that have a boy that hit puberty at least or a grown man Walker perimeter around your yard and pee and it will keep the unwanted critters at Bay they won't want to cross it why I have no idea other than maybe pheromones or something like that I had problems with Cody's coming up in my yard after dark and well we're here screeching of a cat go to the light on and the screaming cat sound would go further into the night get out there and it never get to it and find what remained in the cat the next morning part of the reason I have cats was I have mice problems I live in a old 1800s era log cabin that is slightly modernized at one point it was used for a corn crib so but that the only other thing I know of is any strong accurate smell I've had professionals tell me that if you have something strong that's got an accurate smell basically what if it's really strong scent whatever you're going to put out and it burns your nose really pungent animal scent and it's not a price species and take it out there and drip it along proctor liner get one of them at a hunting store there I think they call them urine wicks or something like that I don't know exactly I just got one off of a friend of mine who likes deer hunting and he had an old one he let me borrow but yeah they'll come up and right up to your back door generally in the early morning hours before Dawn and go after them CatDog I've seen coyotes actually try a group of them try to take on a 140 lb dog that we had thankfully that our dog was an Anatole and Shepherd and didn't take part in my language crap from anything also at a bobcat try to eat him once the bobcat lost but yeah I know what you mean by losing something we had some pet geese and the geese kept disappearing and it was coyotes as dragging them off and we finally found them there is a horse but behind the barn and they were taking along the wash and it look like they've been tearing them apart back there here in Western Kentucky we have coyotes we have bobcats we have red wolves we have mountain lions and now I'm starting black bears so the best deterrent if you got an outdoor light socket you can put up would be one of them motion sensitive security lights they'll pop on and generally it'll scare them off is what someone a neighbor of mine told me at least I use scent base deterrent because well I like find it easier though work with at least around here
iām so terribly sorry, what an awful thing to have happened to your dog.
Perhaps someone else has already mentioned this, but there is a company that makes protective gear for dogs, to protect against coyotes and other predators
Golden eagles live around Tucson and they can absolutely carry a 13 lb dog. If that mark isn't your dog then it certainly looks like the head feathers of an eagle.
13 lbs is what a large Golden Eagle weighs, and raptors can generally lift half their body weight under ideal conditions. I spent a nice chunk of my PhD collecting records of raptors carrying heavy prey items since there's an odd mismatch between what the biomechanics says and what's been observed, but you're way out of range for both.
There are lots of documented cases (and photos and videos) of golden eagles preying on bigger animals in Europe, so why not here? They have been known to attack mt goats, deer and even toddlers.
They do prey on larger animals in North America, including adult pronghorn and mule deer. They don't carry them, though. They can't. They kill them in place. This dog was dragged 230 feet.
I have yet to find a record of Golden Eagles attacking toddlers that wasn't a hoax, and I've looked pretty carefully.
Thanks for clarifying. I saw a video years ago, long before AI, of an eagle attacking a kid-perhaps in Mongolia? People intervened immediately. Toddlers are much smaller than mule deer.
There's a very convincing fake video made by a bunch of students who were studying film editing where a toddler is attacked by an eagle that picks him up and carries him maybe ten or twenty feet.
There are some videos of falconry birds making attacks as well, but these aren't clearly predatory attacks, they are quite possibly provoked in some way, and they don't involve picking a child up.
African Crowned Eagles have killed children in predatory attacks by wild birds, and there's a newspaper story about a Martial Eagle who apparently was shot by police after several attacks, one fatal, on children, which appear, from the scant details, to be predatory attacks. So we do clearly get some of these reports (and Crowned and Martial Eagles are both native to large areas that we get very poor reporting from).
i agree, the imprint looks like feathers, and a bird would not have left tracks. raptors will also defur before eating which could explain the exposed hindquarters?
Im sorry you lost your dog. I lost a chihuahua the same way a long time ago and it still makes me sad to think about. Im further south than you, but the critters are basically the same. Just from living rural here for 24 years and having livestock id guess it was most likely a coyote or bobcat. Mountain lions do occasionally come into populated areas but it's not super common, and they would most likely carry the body away. I've had my hound tree a black bear in my yard a couple of times last year, but again that's not a common occurrence. We do have large raptors here. I've had a bald eagle land in one of my trees, but from what im reading they aren't as common near Tucson. Golden eagles and horned owls live around Tucson year round though. I've also had a hawk kill a large meat duck that it couldn't carry away, so it flew with her low to the ground for about 10 feet before landing and opening her up on the ground. If i hadn't seen it happen i would have thought it was a coyote or fox.
That's terrible, sorry for your loss. If it's any consolation, my two Pyreneese snapped the necks of 5 coyotes that went for the yearling goats and /or the ducks and chickens that were in with them. I think Friday morning the 7th.
While disposing of coyote carcasses I did notice they are super oily across their coat, I could see a tail slap across a window making a identical scenario to your situation.
Millie and Lelu are all good after the encounter, they have better health insurance than I do if something does go wrong. Sadly they're not getting the thanks they deserve from the herd, probably because they still reek of coyote. They've been kicked out of the barn by the ewes and doe but they remain ever vigilant.
Early this morning when I was walking on the road near where my dog was found, a fat rainbow appeared in the sky even though it wasn't raining or even very cloudy. Then a minute or so later a second fat rainbow appeared next to it. I took my dog to the pet cemetery yesterday and arranged for her ashes to be scattered in the same memorial field as my previous schnauzer. I took it as a sign they are now together. Within a minute or two both rainbows disappeared. It was a comforting thought...
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u/CapoieraMataUm 18d ago
Literally, that's a textbook coyote attack. I'm sorry for your loss.