Several years ago, I was getting ready for work, drying my hair, so I couldn’t hear very well. But eventually I notice that the crows were making an enormous racket out front. I went outside to see what was going on and there was a coyote with a dead cat in her mouth about 6 feet from my front yard. A dead cat that looked exactly like Greta. I yelled at the coyote as if she were a dog, “you DROP it!” To my surprise, she did drop it! Once I made sure that it wasn’t MY CAT, I was sad that the mama coyote didn’t get a meal. I went quietly back in the house and a little later the coyote came back and took the dead cat away. One thing I always felt sorry about was that I didn’t make any posters to let the owners of the missing cat know.
We’ve learned to keep our fabulous kitties INDOORS from dusk til dawn — we’ve had coyotes in our yard or in the neighbors’ driveway twice that we “know of” in the past two years. Coyotes are not uncommon in Seattle. The West Seattle Blog has a series of recent articles about coyotes in their area. The PI ran an article in 2005 about coyotes in Wedgewood.
Hi there,
I just want to update this for folks. It’s November 2011 and the coyotes are back.
Last night (Saturday, 11/19) my daughter noticed a wound on one of our cats. It was BAD! I took her to an emergency clinic and fortunately she was lucky enough to have been bitten in her flank, no joints, no organs punctured. She was stitched up and is recovering nicely.
Not so fortunately, our older male cat hasn’t been home in 4 or 5 days and I now fear he suffered the same fate only didn’t avoid the jaws. RIP Bello.
Please be aware of these predators and keep an eye out, and keep your kitties INSIDE at night. It may be the cold, but the dogs are out for sure. Be mindful.