Occurred on May 1, 2023 / Mission Viejo, California, USA
Info from Licensor: "On May 1, 2023, Erin (my wife) and I took the dogs out one last time for the day. We have two dogs, Harley, who was the one that was attacked by the coyote, and Vinny who saved Harley from the coyote attack. At approximately 10:37 pm on the evening of May 1, 2023, both Harley and Vinny snuck out the doggie door before we had a chance to secure it for the evening. We think they either heard or smelled the coyotes on our back slope. Erin and I were in our kitchen when we heard a blood-curdling scream only approximately 20 seconds after we came back in for the evening. At first, we thought it was on the TV. We quickly realized that it was coming from the outside. When I ran outside to check, I found Harley running towards me screaming. Harley ran inside the house and Erin started examining him for injuries. I called Vinny and he came running in and immediately ran over to Harley to check to see if Harley was okay. At this point, neither Erin nor I had any idea as to what had just happened. Erin found that Harley was bleeding, so we wrapped him up and immediately took him down to the emergency vet hospital after locking up our home with Vinny inside. As we were waiting to hear from the Vet, we looked at our backyard camera and realized that Harley had been attacked by a coyote. The video shows that there were two coyotes behind our wrought iron fence line in which one of the coyotes decided to climb the stucco corner post and hop into our backyard. As seen in the video, the coyote chased Harley into our corner planter and started to attack Harley. Vinny immediately ran to help his brother and startled the coyote and then chased the coyote out of our backyard. The video also shows the second coyote that remained behind the fence but fled the scene immediately after Vinny chased off the other coyote. Harley is a 12-pound Morkie who is six years old. Vinny is a rescue dog, and we believe he is an 11-year-old, Maltese/Dachshund mix weighing just 10 pounds and has only three teeth left. So yes, a 10-pound, 11-year-old, near toothless fluffy white dog chased off a 60-pound coyote. The entire event lasted a mere 10 seconds. Harley suffered multiple bites to both his shoulders and to his chest. One of the bites was so bad that the Vet had to install a drain tube in order to prevent a severe infection from forming at one of the bite zones. In total, Harler received approximately 20 stitches. Harley remained in the vet hospital for a full 24 hours before being released. After four weeks, Harley has made a full recovery. Vinny suffered no injuries from this event. There is no doubt that Vinny is a superhero who saved his younger brother from certain death."
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