Woman Saves Dog From Coyote Attack with Newspaper

Tucker, a 12-year-old Chihuahua, has fought diabetes, a brain tumor, near-blindness and, most recently, a pair of attacking coyotes.

His owner, Dawn McCarty, was getting the newspaper when she heard Tucker yelping in her suburban Chicago backyard. She ran to investigate, and that’s when she saw Tucker’s little leg in a coyote’s jaws.

“To see my little guy in the mouth of a coyote—it was terrifying,” McCarty told the Chicago Sun-Times, adding that a second coyote was also in the yard. “They were big—bigger than a German shepherd.”

Okay, so McCarty overestimated the size of the coyotes. Give her a break. They probably looked pretty big next to a Chihuahua, and I’m sure the incident was very traumatic. The important thing is she taught those coyotes a lesson.

“I took my newspaper and kind of held it out like a sword, and I shooed it away—I beat the coyote away,” she said.

McCarty says Tucker still seems shaken up from the ordeal, but otherwise suffered only a few abrasions to his leg.

Even those dog owners located in urban areas should be mindful of the increasing presence of coyotes. As NBC Chicago notes, attacks are on the rise, and not all pets have fared as well as Tucker.