Coyote attacks on pets are rising in suburban yards. Here is how to protect your dog or cat.

What the recent cases actually show

Individually these read as freak events. Together they describe a repeatable failure mode, and it is worth being specific about what went wrong in each one.

A dog taken from a yard in daylight — Lake Bluff, Illinois

In August 2026, a small dog was seized by a coyote from a yard near an apartment complex in Lake Bluff, north of Chicago, and carried into a wooded area. The dog was presumed dead. As CBS News Chicago reported, the attack happened on a Thursday afternoon, not overnight — and the owner's family chased the coyote toward the woods without being able to stop it.

A coyote that dug under a six-foot fence — Irvington, New York

This is the case that should change how homeowners think about fencing. In June 2026 a coyote tunnelled beneath a six-foot fence in Irvington, New York and attacked a five-year-old rescue dog in her own backyard. The owner drove it off by screaming and throwing rocks, and the dog survived. ABC7 New York and lohud both reported the village issued a warning afterwards, in part because a coyote had also approached a toddler nearby.

A fatal attack, and a coyote that turned on a person — New Jersey

CBS News New York reported that an 11-year-old Shih Tzu was killed by a coyote in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and that days earlier a coyote had been recorded on home surveillance going after a golden retriever and then lunging at a woman in a backyard in nearby Woodcliff Lake. Police in the area issued warnings to dog owners.

Two details matter here. First, a coyote confident enough to press an attack while a person is present is a coyote that has lost its wariness of humans. Second, it was a home camera that captured it — which is how the neighborhood learned the animal's behavior had escalated.

An 11-pound dog, and a town's rising sighting count — Lake Oswego, Oregon

In Clackamas County, Oregon, an 11-pound dog was attacked by a coyote. Local reporting noted that Lake Oswego alone had logged 25 reported coyote sightings during 2026, and that wildlife officials describe the animals growing more comfortable in neighborhoods where food is easy to come by.

And a reminder that rabies is real — Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania

In August 2026 police in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania shot an aggressive coyote after it attacked a resident and their dog at a local dog park, as CBS News Philadelphia reported. The animal subsequently tested positive for rabies. An unprovoked daytime attack by a normally evasive animal is exactly the behavior that should prompt an immediate call to animal control.

Why this is happening in ordinary suburbs

Coyotes now live in essentially every kind of American landscape, including dense suburbs. What changes their behavior is not proximity to people — it is what they learn from that proximity.

Massachusetts wildlife officials describe the mechanism plainly: preventing conflict comes down to removing food sources, protecting pets, hazing coyotes, and eliminating shelter. A coyote that finds pet food on a deck, fallen fruit under a tree, or an unsecured trash can gets rewarded for coming closer. Do that enough times and the animal stops treating your yard as off-limits.

Two timing factors compound it:

• Mating and pup season. The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources notes that larger dogs are seen as a threat particularly from January through June, during mating and while pups are being raised. Massachusetts issues specific mating-season advice for the same reason.
• Dawn, dusk, and dark. Massachusetts advises keeping dogs leashed and directly supervised especially early in the morning and at night. Santa Clara County's vector control district makes the sharper point that restricting an unfenced pet to daylight hours reduces the risk of it being taken but does not eliminate it — which the Lake Bluff afternoon attack demonstrates.

Note also the asymmetry in how coyotes see your pets. California's Department of Fish and Wildlife is direct that small pets should not be left unsupervised outside, and Virginia's agency explains why the size difference matters: a small pet may be viewed as prey, while a large dog is more likely to be treated as a rival. Those are two different threats requiring the same response.

The layered defense that actually works

No single measure is sufficient, which is why every agency publishes a list rather than a trick. Ordered here by how much protection each one buys.

1. 1

   Supervise directly. This is the one that matters most.

   Every agency leads with it. Massachusetts: keep dogs leashed and directly supervised whenever they are outside. Naperville, Illinois puts it as no pet outside unattended. "In the yard" does not count as supervised if you are inside the house.

2. 2

   Take away every food reward

   Feed pets indoors and never leave bowls out. Secure trash and compost. Clear fallen fruit. Reconsider ground-level bird feeding, which draws the rodents that draw coyotes. Water sources count too. This is the step that decides whether a coyote passes through or moves in.

3. 3

   Close the gaps in your fence — including the bottom

   Aim for at least six feet, then deal with the two failure modes height does not cover: add a roller or outward-angled extension at the top, and bury wire mesh or an outward-facing apron along the base so digging under does not work. Irvington is the reason this is not optional.

4. 4

   Remove hiding cover near the yard

   Clear brush piles, close off crawl spaces and gaps under decks and sheds. Massachusetts explicitly lists eliminating shelter alongside removing food. A coyote denning next to your yard is a very different problem from one passing through.

5. 5

   Haze the ones that do show up

   Do not let a coyote settle in comfortably. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation advises standing tall, holding your arms out to look large, and — if it lingers — making loud noise, waving your arms, or throwing sticks and stones (NYSDEC guidance). Massachusetts describes air horns, a garden hose, or tossing small objects nearby, with the goal being to frighten the animal off rather than injure it (Mass coyote FAQ). Our full encounter guide covers the technique in detail.

6. 6

   Rethink the leash and the cat

   Skip retractable leashes — the City of Mississauga specifically advises against them and against leaving pets unattended, since dogs can read as threats to coyotes (municipal guidance). For cats, indoors is the only reliable answer; a free-roaming cat in coyote territory is exposed on a schedule you do not control.

If a coyote attacks your pet

• Get the pet away first, without putting your hands between the animals. Make yourself loud and large. Owners in the Irvington and Lake Bluff cases used shouting and thrown objects.
• Go to a veterinarian the same day, even for wounds that look minor. Puncture wounds close over contaminated tissue, and your vet will need to assess rabies risk and vaccination status.
• Seek medical care yourself if you were bitten or scratched, or if saliva reached a wound, per the CDC guidance above.
• Report it to animal control and your state wildlife agency. Reports are how a town learns that an individual animal has escalated — which is what triggered the public warnings in Irvington and New Jersey. Many jurisdictions have a dedicated reporting line.
• Keep the footage. If a camera captured the attack, it documents behavior and timing that animal control can act on.

The gap in all of this advice

Read the guidance back and notice what it assumes. Supervise your pet when a coyote might be around. Haze the coyote that shows up. Report the animal that has become bold. Every one of those instructions presumes you know a coyote is using your property.

Usually you do not. Coyotes move through yards at 3 a.m., cross the same route for weeks, and leave no trace an owner would notice. In several of the cases above the animal's behavior had been escalating in the neighborhood beforehand — it just was not visible to the household it eventually affected until the attack itself.

If you have cameras, you likely have the evidence already and simply cannot find it. A camera facing a yard where coyotes pass generates motion alerts constantly — cars, wind, people, your own dog — and after a week of that, nobody reads them. The recording of the coyote crossing your lawn at 3 a.m. exists in your history. It just never reached you as something worth knowing.