Coyotes luring dogs

[KFhunter]

So if you are out in the boonies with your lab and your dog comes barreling out if the brush with a songdog nipping at her heels and you just happen to be carrying a 223 with you and you just happen to smoke the sucker, is that coyote hunting with dogs?

You'd have to appear to be hunting coyote to get a ticket. If you are just going for a walk and you have a gun then you are defending your dog from a wild animal.

But that would never happen with a lab.

Coyotes go after toy dogs and cats. In suburban areas they figure out how to act like a friendly domestic dog and pets go right up to them.

I've seen plenty full sized dogs baited by coyotes. Co-worker had his husky ripped to death by a pair. My parents black and tan coonhound goes about 83# and had his flanks opened up and I saw that happen. Sure our small dogs get it too and I've lost a couple beagles and had another get ripped up real bad but those coyotes kill big dogs plenty times.

I've never seen it and I lived in Pierce for a while which is coyote country thanks to the shooting restrictions. All the "lost pet" signs were for cats and small dogs. Our neighborhood lab would chase them for fun.

Here is a Boston Terrier chasing one off

Not saying that husky wasn't killed but that isn't the norm.

They really aren't built to kill something as large as a lab. They are pretty lousy deer killers unless it is a fawn or sick adult.

If they kill dogs or not is a regional thing.  One can't really use absolutes with coyotes as they can be so different regionally.

Around here they don't hardly ever kill a pet, they haven't even carried off our cats that sit out in the hayfield gophering totally exposed. 
I've never had one chase a dog even though I use a 30lb Brittany that should be fair game to a pack of yotes.   

Someone else I knew had a golden that would "play" with 4-5 coyotes and never got bit, this went on for years.   

Yet in other areas they'd flat tear up a lone dog. 

As for killing deer they are very effective especially during the winter, I see deer all the time out on the river ice trying to escape yotes, deer drown every year trying to escape yotes.  Its documented they have killed moose. 

Yotes are underestimated. 

[konradcountry]

This buck doesn't look real sick...

Coyotes group killing an animal that large is extremely rare and we don't know what state the buck started in.

Just because it happens on occasion does not mean it is a normal part of their diet.

Odds of a lab being attacked on a walk through the woods by coyotes is so unlikely that it is nothing to worry about. 99.9% of the time the coyotes already ran once they smelled him.

If coyotes were really a threat to labs they would take them all the time like they do cats. There is a reason why there is always a warning for "small dogs and cats" when a problem coyote is reported.

[Bullkllr]

This buck doesn't look real sick...

Coyotes group killing an animal that large is extremely rare and we don't know what state the buck started in.

Just because it happens on occasion does not mean it is a normal part of their diet.

Odds of a lab being attacked on a walk through the woods by coyotes is so unlikely that it is nothing to worry about. 99.9% of the time the coyotes already ran once they smelled him.

If coyotes were really a threat to labs they would take them all the time like they do cats. There is a reason why there is always a warning for "small dogs and cats" when a problem coyote is reported.

Not saying it happens all the time everywhere, but it happens often enough to be well documented.

I don't think anyone is or should be "worried" about coyotes while out walking their lab. Take the human out of the equation and you might see a different outcome.

The kind of predation (larger animals/pets) is very situationally dependent, but let's not kid ourselves, if all coyotes had to eat was labs, then labs would be the daily special. Just depends on available and easier food sources.

[zwickeyman]

Sorry but I didnt through all the posts so bear with me.

For sure Coyotes lure dogs to kill them. Typically one Coyote will lure a dog away from his safety zone where there will be 2 or 3 coyotes in wait for ambush.  Witnessed it with success once and failure multiple times

[KFhunter]

coyotes are documented killing moose

[Okanagan]

[
They really aren't built to kill something as large as a lab. They are pretty lousy deer killers unless it is a fawn or sick adult.

Actually, coyotes are super efficient at killing healthy adult deer when conditions favor the coyote, and they can and do kill them when conditions are not favorable.  When crusted snow is hard enough for coyotes to run on top of it while deer hooves go through, coyotes easily run down deer, and with a few inches of snow to run on, are at neck or even head level with the deer.  Easy kill.  Coyotes will major on eating deer in such conditions, which are not rare conditions in north central WA. 

A second situation where coyotes kill deer is to drive the deer onto lake ice and chase it around a bit till its feet slip on the ice, often breaking a leg in the process, but an easy kill for coyotes either way.  On Shuswap Lake in BC, once the lake freezes coyotes regularly and deliberately chase/herd deer onto the lake ice and kill them, or used to and I assume they still do.

On three occasions I have watched a single coyote lure a dog into chasing it into an ambush with other coyotes. Edited to specify the dogs lured:  One was a springer spaniel, one was a red heeler and the third was a mongrel that looked to me like it was a black lab/German shepherd mix.

Merely observed facts. 

[konradcountry]

Actually, coyotes are super efficient at killing healthy adult deer when conditions favor the coyote, and they can and do kill them when conditions are not favorable.  When crusted snow is hard enough for coyotes to run on top of it while deer hooves go through, coyotes easily run down deer, and with a few inches of snow to run on, are at neck or even head level with the deer.  Easy kill.  Coyotes will major on eating deer in such conditions, which are not rare conditions in north central WA. 

Yes it's known they can wear them out in the snow but that doesn't make them efficient deer killers. They aren't wolves and in Western Wa they will sit and watch deer walk by. If they were efficient deer killers then they would be chasing them all the time. But they let them walk knowing it's probably a waste of time.

I don't doubt that luring has occurred but that isn't the norm.

Every single report I have read about hikers getting their dog bit involved a small dog. There are thousands of people walking dogs every day through our forests. If coyotes actually viewed larger dogs as lunch it would happen all the time. Every single report I read involved a hiker with a small dog and it didn't matter if it was on a leash.

If you lost a lab to a pack of coyotes it would probably be a case where the lab wondered in alone thinking the coyotes wanted to play and then a coyote gets a lethal first bite. It's not going to be on a walk. They aren't going to just spot a 75lb dog with a human and chase it.

[Thermal Predator Control]

These conversations are a joke, it’s illegal in Washington state.  Leave it at that.