Bolingbrook Woman And Her Dog Okay After Coyote Encounter

Back in March, I wrote a piece on this website warning you to keep an eye on your cats and/or dogs, because Northern Illinois had just entered into coyote mating season. Well, mating season has wrapped up, but you should still be vigilant about your pets.

The Illinois Natural History Survey says they estimate that the state of Illinois has somewhere around 30,000 to 40,000 coyotes running around not only rural Illinois, but in larger cities like Rockford, Chicago, and all the suburbia in between. If mating season was a big success, we can expect those numbers to rise.

More coyotes means more chance for a coyote-human encounter, and that chance goes up if you've got a small dog with you when you meet up with a coyote. A Bolingbrook woman knows that now.

ABC-7 Chicago:

A nature trail in south suburban Bolingbrook is shut down until further notice because a coyote nipped at a woman and her dog.

They were walking along the Lily Cache Creek Trail about 9 a.m. Sunday when they saw the coyote, which threatened the woman and dog but did not hurt them.

Bolingbrook police said the animal yipped and snarled at the woman's heels until she left the area.

I'm guessing that it's because of all the time I spent watching cartoons as a kid, but when I read the part of the story that said "...they saw the coyote, which threatened the woman and dog but did not hurt them,"  I somehow pictured a coyote, standing fully upright on two legs and smoking a cigarette while leaning against a tree, saying something to the effect of "That's a nice dog. Be a shame if something happened to it." Then reaching into an ACME box for a stick of dynamite, which blew up in his face, allowing woman and dog to escape the scene. Like I said, I watched a lot of cartoons.