The American Beagler Forum

I took my dogs out running Friday afternoon. We went to a great spot that I run in all of the time that is loaded with hare. I had my two mature dogs, Gunner and Maggie, and also brought my new pup who is almost five months (Sophie). It wasn't long before the hounds were hot on a hare. My pup would run along with the big dogs for awhile, then come back looking for me, then go chase the big dogs again. The running was awesome for 2 1/2 hours straight. I finally pulled the dogs off and headed back to the cabin for a beer and to give the dogs some water. I headed back out around 3:30. We went to another great spot about a 1/2 mile away and the dogs were on a hare in minutes. I was sitting on the top of my dog box on the 4 wheeler enjoying a beautiful afternoon with a cold beer in my hand and hound music in the backround. Life doesn't get any better than that!

Gunner and Maggie were 200 yards off the trail running the hare and Sophie was near me. The dogs were burning the hare up and suddenly stopped barking. A second later I heard my female let out an alarm bark (like when somebody is coming up the driveway.) About 10 seconds of silence followed and all hell broke loose! I started on a dead sprint towards the dogs screaming and yelling anything that would come out of my mouth! All I could hear was my dogs yelping in pain and coyote yips. I got in about 100 yards and my dogs met me with all the hair on their bodies standing straight up. Their hind ends were covered in saliva and they had teeth marks in their hair. I ran them back to the 4 wheeler and checked them over as I loaded them in the box. Maggie had been bitten on the hind end but had no visible wounds. As I loaded Gunner my hand was covered in blood. He had two holes about the size of a dime on his back leg.

I rode back to the cabin then loaded Gunner in the truck and brought him to the vet. When the coyote bit him it pulled the skin away of the muscle on his back leg and nearly got his anus. The vet installed a tube under the skin connected to both holes to let puss seep out as the wound heals. He has to have that in for 4-5 days then I can pull it out and let the holes heal on their own. The surgery was $350.

I consider myself very fortunate to be that close to the dogs when fight began. While running hare it isn't uncommon to be 1/2 mile from the dogs for much of the chase. Luckily the fight only lasted 10-15 seconds total.

I am also fortunate that my pup felt the need to be near me at that time. I don't think she would have stood a chance in hell against a yote.

This is the first incident I have had, and I hope it is the last. Next winter I will have to try a little harder to thin some of them out.

Here are a couple pics from at the vets office and the wound with the tube in it.







Here is a pic of Maggie who was attacked but was uninjured.

i hate them. cant run at night around here because of them. there was a big stout male around here a few years ago named Pine Mt Zeb and he was a Man Child. He went out west and I heard he was killed by yotes if that male could be killed any beagle could be killed.

right now is a bad time to have the dogs out and a great time ... a great time bc you can get some rabbits up but a bad time bc coyotes are very territorial this time of year bc of denning... coyotes will travel the rest of the year except for the spring when they are having little ones... this makes them easy to call and very vocal as well... if a dog or dogs get close to a denning area they will for sure get confronted and most likely run off or attacked...most likely you have gotten too close to a den site...... hate to see your dog get attacked like that.. hope your dogs heal up well...

if you want to take care of that problem... get you a pup in distress sound and a good rifle... you can have paybacks real quick...

Sorry to hear you hounds were attacked. Even more sorry to hear you were snookered into paying $350 for an un-necessary surgery.
Looks like that vet went to the trouble of hooking up a drain on your wallet as well as your hound

coyotes!!!!!!!! yep you need to thin them out...by anymeans!!!

B-MAN, YOU Got lucky to be close enough to get to your dogs, last summer i wasn't so lucky they killed one of my females and sent 3 other dogs to the vet, they should all be done away with i live in western maryland and we are over populated around here with them. Hope your dog's get healed up ok.

i dont know if this will help but i run at nite a lot in lp of mi & up of mi. one nite in the up i was running at nite and i heard some yotes come in the dogs it was to thick to get to them. i remembered i had some whistle bottle rockets in my jeep glove box so i got them out and lit one aimed it over the swamp and it went up and whistled loudly and blew up i did this three times the yotes quit yipping and my dogs kept running . every since then i carry them with me when i run . and if i run at nite i will lite on of every once in a while in my dogs direction it works i showed dale larsin this he still does it in the up when he runs up there.

Hey B-Man, sorry to hear about your hounds. At least there going to be ok, you gotta start yote huntin. A couple winters ago 3 of my hounds were run down by wolves while we were chasin Hare. Two came back really scared but my best bitch wasn't so lucky. The wolves riped her apart like she was a scoobie snack, not a pretty sight to see your best hound like that. I dont know where your from in WI, but around here we have plenty of wolves to worrie about.

friend of mine was firing a 357 in the air within 10 yards of an attack. the yotes would go to leave when he fired it and then go right after them again. so dont count on the noise makers to make a difference.

i think the yotes in the up dontseeasmany people becuase not as many people live there and so much untouched forest . so there not use to the noise and light and bang . or people. as the yotes down south . thats probily why it works for me . inthe up. the remote wilderness iswhy they introduced wolves there . wich was darn stupid for the dnr to do. they make much more money of off the houndsmanthattravel to the up to hunt than the bleeding heart peeta people that want to come take picsofwolves inthe wild.

I keep a bell on my dog i understand it can help keep them away. Spring is the best time to hunt if your trying to thin them out. They need both parents for the pups to survive if you kill 1 of them the pups starve to death in the den, its cruel but i hate coyote so much i don't even care. I'm thinning them out at my rabbit spot this spring so hopefully I get better numbers next fall. If it wasn't a rabbit hunting spot I wouldn't hunt them in the spring.

got this one at the rabbit spot 2 days ago.

Glad to see that your hounds are OK, they are nice lookin dogs.

I sold a 6mth old shorts pro,Lineboss male to a guy he started running good he was out rabbit hunting and a coyote come in an grab the shorts male and snaped his back then pick his female and took of they are getting real bad hear in Indiana and I think some of the wild dogs are breeding with the males, buddy had 20 around his big dog close to town at night he shot a few some coyote one wild dog he called the game warden he come out and could beleif what he was seeing went back to his truck got Rifle and started shoting ended up takeing 7 out need to open a bounty on them