Well, you might want to keep your pets a little closer to home, since Pat Gerke has reported seeing at least one coyote up on South Country Club Drive this weekend.  From the Wikipedia article on coyotes:

Coyotes are often attracted to dog food and animals that are small enough to appear as prey. Items like garbage, pet food and sometimes feeding stations for birds and squirrels will attract coyotes into backyards. Approximately 3 to 5 pets attacked by coyotes are brought into the Animal Urgent Care hospital of south Orange County (California) each week, the majority of which are dogs, since cats typically do not survive the attacks.^[50] Scat analysis collected near Claremont, California revealed that coyotes relied heavily on pets as a food source in winter and spring.^[41] At one location in Southern California, coyotes began relying on a colony of feral cats as a food source. Over time, the coyotes killed most of the cats, and then continued to eat the cat food placed daily at the colony site by citizens who were maintaining the cat colony.^[41] Coyotes attack smaller or similar sized dogs, and they have been known to attack even large, powerful breeds like the Rottweiler in exceptional cases^[51]. Dogs larger than coyotes are generally able to drive them off, and have been known to kill coyotes on occasion. Smaller breeds are more likely to suffer injury or death.

I’ve seen multiple foxes over in our part of the neighborhood in recent years, but a coyote is a whole different matter. If anyone else sees this one, or gets a picture, be sure to let me know.

Cheers -

Jim Downey