About every other night I wake up to a pack of coyotes yipping and yapping about 100 yds from my house. My dog is tied up about 50 yds from them and he goes banannas. I can go out and find there tracks the next morning, so I know exactly how close they are. Sometimes they even enter the yard.

What do these vocalizations mean? They will only occasionaly howl. The howls are usually farther back in the woods.

Do they pose any danger to my dog? He is a 40lb lab/ausie shepard mix. I am thinking about moving him closer to the house until I install an invisible fence.

I just bought the house and property 2 months ago and haven't even started calling yet this year. I'm excited!!

I have a similar situation at my house. It's probably a family of coyotes on their way out to hunt. My dog goes nuts too. Your dog should be ok but if it was a poodle it's life span might not be so long.

jjrobo,

Who's to say about coyotes around your dog.
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Here's a true story for ya;

Some yrs back, perhaps 15yrs give or take. A co-worker who lives on the edge of town, on a non-active farm. They had two dogs. A large male Norwegian Elkhound & a Shitzu[sp]?.

These dogs roamed free on their place. But always bedded up by the house @ night. One night 5-coyotes paid the dogs a visit. 3-coyotes piled onto the Elkhound, et commenced to try & kill him. 2-coyotes had the Shitzu stretched out.

This brawl, caused the owner's to come out onto the deck to see what was up. They both ran over to assist their dogs, by yelling & kicking. Coyotes never let up.

Co-worker ran in the house & brought out his shotgun. He shot into the air. The coyotes scattered. Elkhound lived, but was chewed up bad. The Shitzu, had to be put down.

Perhaps your dog is a tough dog. But no match for more than one coyote @ a time, IMO.

Could be a problem, even with a dog larger than a coyote if the coyotes are in a pack.

Your invisible fence will work great, and will keep your dog in and the coyotes outside...as long as you can get the coyotes to wear collars too.

"as long as you can get the coyotes to wear collars too."

Jack

I have a good friend of mine that owns 10 acres of Avocado trees. Anyhow, he has had German Shepards and Pit bulls his whole life. He let's them roam in his property in pairs at night to keep coyotes away. In the last 5 years he has lost 3 pits to coyotes. Those coyotes are tough in packs, and unless I had a pair of dogs that were good scrappers, I'd keep them locked up for their safety.

I saw two coyotes ripping up a good sized German Shepard once. I almost had to run over the coyotes with my car to run them off. What they do is get on opposite ends of a dog. The coyote in the rear bites the dog on the hind end. When the dog spins around the other coyote bites the dog's hind end. This goes on until the dog is exhausted then the coyotes finish the dog off. Two small coyotes can and will kill a large dog.

Sounds like they are talking themselves into having a go at your dog...

Most of the howling is a group of coyotes making sounds for nightly hunting escapades and also will get other groups to howl as well, some of these you may hear and some you won't. Durring the fall/winter the coyotes won't generally make much of a fuss with a dog that has some size to it and make up of the hunting group.Many are young of the year coyotes and simply yet won't engauge anything there size unless brought into it by a dominate pair.

Spring/summer a different issue coyote pairs are on dens and defend these areas very hard, that is when I would worry about fido having free roam or a pair comming in to take on fido.

They have different vocals and group howling or hunting whines are not an agressive communication, challange howls and pairs with alot of barking and choppy howls mean business. Best thing is they tipped you off to there day layup areas and you should be out there calling them in!!!!

Get yourself a couple airedales and forget bout it.

Ummm, so coyotes won't mess with airedales? hmmmmm.

Oh they might mess with them, BUT I truelly don't think they could kill a pair and eat them. Might be wrong though. I know lots of guys that use them for decoy/ tolling/ denning and they be pretty tuff A.

i don't know much about anything but, they could be trying to lure your dog out..they may view him as a competitor to the territory. This is what an ol boy told me..it happened to him. Long story short, he had a 100lb german shepard/lab cross. Was an old dog. The guy told me that at night he could hear yipping right near his yard. He could see in the yard light that a female would come into yard wagging tail etc trying to entice the old dog off the steps. He could also see other sets of eyes in the darkness waiting. His dog knew better than to leave the house--he just stood and barked. Farmer told me this happened a couple times so one night he laid his deer rifle by the bed. It happened again, so he creaked open the window and snapped a shot. He said is 78 yr old wife went airborn. Thought he was gonna have to give her CPR. And..he missed. But that is what he thought they were trying to do.

The Dorn dogs I have have some Border Collie in them, I think this is to timid them down a little. I think a straight Airedale is too aggressive, depending on the dog, he thinks he can kick butt on a bunch of coyotes, he won't come back if a group of them get him alone.T.20

My nieghbor told me years ago he had a female rott that had a coyote walk in front of her to get her attention then two jumped her from behind he said he went out the door with an axe handle to get them off. I let my dogs out at the same time and have not had a problem with coyotes but they are pretty large and my american bulldog is a scraper I guess my bullmastiff is too but thier daughter would try to play with them.