Woman lauds pet as hero: Golden retriever stops charge by coyote or coydog, owner says
By Brent Davis, Record Staff, July 28, 2007


CAMBRIDGE - The day began, as most do for Jan Arnald, with an early-morning walk with her dog, Bailey.

It changed in a heartbeat.

Arnald had just left her Galt home at about 4:30 a.m. with the two-year-old golden retriever when she spotted something through the darkness near Inverness and Grand Ridge drives. It was an animal, about the size of a dog, pacing back and forth about 50 metres away.

And then it was a blur, charging, covering the distance between them in seconds, leaping through the air.

Initially she thought it was a dog, but with its distinctive face and mangy coat, she concluded it was a coyote, or a cross called a coydog.

"It came right at me, right at my throat," Arnald says.

She loosened Bailey's lead, just enough that the growling dog could knock the smaller coyote down and fend off the attack with her paws. The coyote was stunned, giving Arnald a chance to run.

She and her dog raced home, the coyote pursuing and nipping at Arnald's legs. They made it inside -- barely. The frantic coyote continued to bang against a glass door for a couple of minutes before it ran off, possibly spooked by Arnald's screams.

Neither Arnald nor Bailey were hurt in the July 10 attack -- and Arnald says she owes that to her dog.

"I wouldn't have survived it without her," she says. "My dog saved me, that's a given."

And in the wake of another coyote attack that killed a Kitchener cat earlier this week, Arnald wants people to realize they're out there.

"There are too many small children up here," she says. "People have to know they're here."

In the 10 years she's lived in the area, Arnald had never seen a coyote until the morning of the attack. But she's seen them since, running in pairs or in a pack of three on at least two other occasions.

Coyotes, typically, are timid creatures. They're opportunistic, known to attack livestock and small animals such as cats, but they rarely tangle with humans.

That has Arnald wondering whether the one that attacked her was rabid. Following the incident, a veterinarian gave Bailey a clean bill of health because she hadn't suffered any bites or cuts.

"Coyotes would be capable of carrying the rabies virus," says Curt Monk, Waterloo Region's manager of health protection.

But a rabid coyote hasn't been found in the region in more than a decade, thanks in part to a successful provincial bait vaccination program.

Since 1992, the number of cases of animal rabies has dropped by 95 per cent in Ontario, Monk says.

Still, it doesn't mean it's not a possibility.

"My advice would be to exercise caution around wild animals," Monk says. "Don't approach them, and don't feed them."

On Monday, a homeowner watched, horrified, as a coyote attacked and killed a pet cat in her Kitchener backyard.

Both incidents occurred in proximity to the Grand River, a popular area for coyotes.

A Ministry of Natural Resources spokesperson said earlier this week that warmer winters and an increase in the local rabbit population would translate into healthier, more numerous coyotes.

Officials in Cambridge are looking to hire a private contractor who could trap and possibly relocate the animals.

"We're not equipped to trap them," says manager of operations compliance Jamie Austin.

He encouraged people in Cambridge to report coyote sightings to the public works division at 519-621-0740. Noting times and locations may help a contractor narrow their search.

As for Arnald and Bailey, they're still going for their walks. But Arnald is armed these days with a canister of animal repellent, a whistle to make noise and a heightened awareness of what could be lurking in the area.

"I've never been scared of an animal . . . until that day," she says.

bdavis@therecord.com

Bad luck comes in threes for Tony
By Emma Cullwick, Birmingham Mail, August 14, 2007

SOME people have all the luck - but not disaster prone Brummie Tony Richards. The 62-year-old has suffered a spate of misfortune over the past week. First he was made redundant from his engineering job at a toilet roll making company in Aston last Thursday. The next day a family holiday organised to cheer him up was flushed down the pan when his caravan burst into flames just ten minutes into the journey to the south of France.

The final blow came when the avid Blues fan was left gutted after his team were beaten 3-2 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. "They say bad luck comes in threes, let's hope I've had my lot now," said Tony, of Hernefield Road, Shard End. But a bit of good fortune did befall Tony - in the unlikely form of his two-and-a-half-year-old dog, Bonnie.

The golden retriever was the one to sniff out something was wrong with the ill-fated caravan as Tony travelled in his Citroen car with wife Christine, aged 63, and aunt Patricia Burrows, 65.

"I've no doubt that Bonnie saved our bacon," said Tony. "I've had a head cold recently and it's affected my hearing. Then Bonnie, who was in the back of the car, started barking like mad, which is really out of character.

"I realised something must be wrong, so I pulled the car over."

Within 30 seconds the caravan went up in a ball of flames, spreading to the back of the car.

He said: "I may seem like the world's unluckiest person at the moment, but at least my family and I are alive to tell the tale."

West Midlands and Warwickshire fire crews tackled the blaze on the hard shoulder of the M6 motorway near junction four at Coleshill at around 1.30pm on Friday.

It is believed an electrical fault in a generator sparked the blaze.

"I guess I'll have to settle for a day's fishing in one of the canals in Brum - but then again I'll probably lose my rods!" said Tony.

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