Top 17 Tips to Protect Dogs from Coyotes & Make Your Home Coyote-Proof

“Coyotes Attack Small Dogs in LaSalle.”

“Family Dog Get Killed by Coyotes in Fenced Backyard.”

Similar news has multiplied in the past 5 decades, and more people in the forums or even from your neighborhoods are seeking solutions to protect dogs from coyotes eagerly.

If there are coyotes roaming around your neighborhoods, it is necessary for you, as responsible pet owners, to learn how to keep coyotes away from your home and protect pet dogs against coyotes.

Check out our new article on how to choose the right pet camera for your dog, cat, or other pet.

Are Coyotes Dangerous to Your Dogs – These Shocking Coyote Attack Statistics Can Tell

According to Urban Coyote Research Project, the number of coyote attacks on pets in the Chicago Metropolitan Area has increased from 0-2 attacks per year to 6-14 between 1990 and 2004.

It is also discovered that nearly 30 different breeds of pet dogs have been attacked by coyotes. Small pet dogs and housecats are attacked more often than medium-to-large dogs, which are usually attacked by 2 to 3 coyotes at a time.

Conflicts between coyotes and domestic dogs in urban areas often peak from late fall to winter during coyotes’ mating season and again in spring in their breeding season, when the territorial defense is highest.

Other Little-Known Facts About Coyote Attacks:

• Coyotes carry multiple parasites and diseases like canine distemper and rabies, which can affect pet dogs easily.

• Most coyotes hunt after sunset and they will tend to avoid areas with bright light.

• Coyotes now expand their menu to everything from small mammals and birds to carrion and garbage, livestock and pets, fruits and vegetables.

• Coyotes will attack dogs that get too close to their dens and pups.

• During the dispersal period (September-November), juvenile coyotes will leave their pack for the first time and hunt on their own, which will lead to another peak of coyote attacks.

How to Protect Dogs from Coyotes in Daily Life

As coyote attacks are still on the rise, special efforts shall be taken to protect your dogs from coyotes.

Here we have listed some useful tips for you to secure your dogs and yards in a breeze.

Tip 1. Use Vest to Protect Dogs from Coyotes and Other Predators

If you have spotted coyotes roaming around your neighborhood, put spiked coyote collars or specials coyote coats on your pet dogs to protect them from coyotes.

The special coats and vests, with bold colors and spikes, are able to scare off coyotes and secure the dogs’ necks in case of any coyote attacks.

A Redditor has also dressed his/her own dog in a coyote vest and posted a picture of it on Reddit, which has been appreciated as an amazing and practical solution by other Redditors.

Tip 2. Keep Your Dogs Leashed During Dog Walking

One of the most effective ways to protect dogs from coyotes is by always keeping your dogs on leash when you walk the dogs.

A leash is commonly referred to as the lifeline of your dogs. By leashing your dogs, you are reducing the risks of coyote attacks on your lovely pets to a great extent.

To prevent confronting coyotes, you may choose places with fewer coyote witnesses and more lighting at night to walk your dogs.

Tip 3. Don’t Leave Your Dogs Unattended

Leaving your dogs in the yards alone can never be a good idea since the coyotes may take their chances and attack your dogs.

To avoid coyote attacks, it is necessary for you to keep dogs indoors at night or attend your dogs when they are having fun in the yards.

You can also protect small dogs from coyotes with 2-way audio security cameras installed inside or outside your home. Once these IP cameras capture coyote activities, they will trigger audio alarms to scare off coyotes.

Moreover, you can talk loudly via the camera speaker to frighten coyotes away without confronting them in person, which is proved to be useful by a Reolink Argus 3 Pro user,

Update, April 2nd: A homeowner places an outdoor PoE IP camera on the front lawn to monitor his chickens. One day, the camera was triggered and captured the whole coyote hunting scene. Luckily, all the chickens escaped successfully. Check out the video footage below!

Tip 4. Close or Block Pet Doors at Night

As we have suggested above, you can protect dogs from coyotes by keeping them indoors at night. Don’t forget to close or block the doggy doors as well. Or else, coyotes will seize this opportunity and intrude your home.

The same applies to your garage doors as well. If you live in coyote-prone areas, always remember to keep your garage doors closed and locked (check here to learn more tips to secure your garage).

Tip 5. Clear Up Your Yards from Time to Time to Protect Dogs from Coyotes

Always keep in mind that coyotes roaming around your neighborhood are seeking food and shelters. By eliminating access to the food and shelters at your home, you are able to keep coyotes away from your yards and thus, protect pets from coyotes.

Here are several things you need to do to make your yards coyote-proof:

#1. Take away dog poop in time or that smell may attract coyotes;

#2. Trim overgrown landscaping to provide no hiding places for coyotes;

#3. If there are fruit trees in your gardens, pick up the fruit once it falls on the ground;

#4. Make sure that any edible things placed in your yards are covered with tight lids, especially the trash cans.

Tip 6. Use Outdoor Lights to Protect Small Dogs from Coyotes

Outdoor lights are another way to repel coyotes. By their nature, coyotes don’t go to bright areas at night.

Lightening your yards with outdoor lights or motion-sensor lights will help discourage coyotes from prowling there.

Tip 7. Create an Unwelcome Environment for Coyotes

Coyotes can easily hop over 6 feet fences to sneak in your yards for food. To protect dogs from coyotes, you shall set up 7+ feet high coyote-proof fences with coyote spikes, PVC pipes or chicken wire that push off any climbing coyotes.

Also, mind that coyotes are able to dig tunnels as well. To prevent that from happening, make sure that the fences extend at least 12 inches underground.

Since coyotes have a keen sense of smell, you may take advantage of their nature and apply vinegar spray or predator urine around your house to scare them off.

Tip 8. Don’t Feed Coyotes or Other Wild Animals

In some places, local authorities have imposed an outright ban on feeding coyotes while some residents ignore the regulations and keep providing food for coyotes, which in fact puts the whole neighborhood into danger.

Once the coyotes treat your neighborhood as their source of food and shelters, they will become bolder and chase after your pet dogs and even small children and adults if they are not well fed.

Meanwhile, you may feed the coyotes without being aware of it by feeding your pet dogs outside your home. Remember to leave no pet food and eliminate the water sources in the yards.

If you own a habit to feed stray animals in your neighborhoods, feed them at a regular time and take back the leftover in time.

Tip 9. Keep Tabs on the Health Conditions of Your Dogs

With coyotes lingering around your neighborhoods, your pets are prone to get affected by a wide variety of parasites and diseases, including ticks, fleas and even rabies.

To protect dogs from coyotes, you can keep your dogs up to date on vaccinations and also prepare a first aid kit for your dogs in case of any coyote attacks.

Tip 10. Combine Your Neighborhoods’ Efforts to Protect Dogs from Coyotes

It takes the joint efforts from the whole neighborhood to protect pet dogs from wild coyotes.

If your pets are lost in a coyote-prone area, you may seek help from the community members and find the lost pets together. Obliviously, you are able to recover the missing fluffy friends much faster with joint hands.

Another practical way to protect pet dogs against coyotes is to share your tips with your neighbors, who may lack basic knowledge of coyotes. By spreading your words, you can guide other dog owners to protect their dogs and improve your neighbors’ awareness to keep coyotes wild as well.

How to Protect Dogs from Coyotes When Encountering One

Encountering coyotes, especially the large one, won’t necessarily end up coyote attacks on your pet dogs or on you yourselves.

Here is all you need to protect dogs from coyotes when you are confronting one:

Stay calm, haze the animals but not to kill them and leave safely.

Tip 1. Stand Tall, Wave Your Arm and Yell at Coyotes

Quite the same to other wild animals, coyotes fear for creatures that are bigger than themselves. To scare off coyotes when you are confronting one, you may stand up straight, wave your arms over your head and also shout “Go away” loudly to the coyotes.

By doing so, you will haze the coyotes and protect pet dogs from coyotes.

Tip 2. Take a Light Stick or Other Tools with You to Protect Dogs from Coyotes

Before you go out to walk your dogs, you may take some handy tools to protect small dogs from coyotes. Shaking the sticks in your hand, making big sounds with noisemakers and spraying vinegar water are all practical ways to scare away coyotes.

Tip 3. Grab Any Projectiles to Protect Pet Dogs from Coyotes

If you don’t have any handy tools to protect small dogs from coyotes, you can grab anything near you, such as stones, tree branches and tennis balls as well, and throw towards (but not at) the coyotes.

Tip 4. Continue Hazing the Coyotes Until They are Out of Your Sight

With the three steps above done, you may find that the coyotes do not leave but keep staring at you a dozen yards away.

It doesn’t mean that the coyotes have given up upon your pet dogs and you. The best thing to protect your dogs from coyotes is to keep hazing them with the three methods above until they run out of your sight.

Tip 5. Don’t Turn Your Back to Them or Try to Run

A piece of research on coyote attacks has indicated that hazing is the most effective method to protect pet dogs from coyotes while the least feasible way is to turn your back to that wild animals and run.

If you do so, you are exposing your drawbacks to the coyotes and they will chase after you in no time by their nature.

You believe that you can run faster than the coyotes?

Trust me, these wild creatures can surpass and attack you within minutes.

The safest way is to step back slowly while hazing them at the same time.

Tip 6. Don’t Use Poison or Kill Coyotes without Licenses

Trapping or killing the coyotes on your own can never be your first option to protect dogs from coyotes. Without sufficient hunting experience, you may get attacked by the coyotes if the killing fails.

Even veteran hunters need to acquire licenses from local authorities before hunting coyotes.

Moreover, using poison to kill coyotes may lead to bad consequences. For example, other predators in the wild will get poisoned and infected as well if they have eaten dead coyotes that carry fatal parasites and diseases.

Tip 7. Report to Animal Control or Other Local Authorities

Local authorities know the best how to deal with coyote issues. So when you are safe after confronting or spotting coyotes in your neighborhood, contact the professionals and report to them as soon as possible.

It is beneficial to protect dogs from coyotes in your neighborhood and bring coyote issues to the forefront as well.

With your reports, local and national researchers will understand the coyote problems better and thus, they will be able to offer more possible solutions to avoid the conflicts between coyotes and humans.

It is your turn now! Do you have any more effective ways to protect dogs from coyotes? Share your solution in the comment below!

Resources:
① Nextdoor: Coyotes problem is serious in my city of La Puente. How do I protect pet dogs from coyotes?
② Reddit: What should I do when I encounter coyotes on my morning walks?
③ City-Data: How do I protect my dogs from coyotes?
④ Chronicle Forum: Coyote came close while I was walking the dog. Does anyone have any advice on how to protect my dogs?