Home Invading Coyote Kills Family Dog

For the second time this month, I'm writing about a coyote killing a pet inside the supposed safety of its family's home. A few weeks ago, an Alabama man shot and killed a coyote in his home after it came through the pet door and killed his cat.

The most recent incident happened to the Vanthiel family of San Dimas, California. Their 8-year-old Yorkie, Noah, was killed by a coyote that apparently slipped through a locked, 5-inch gap in a sliding glass door that their dogs used to get to the backyard. "There was forced hair on both sides, where that animal squeezed through to get my little boy," Jeffrey Vanthiel said.

NBC Los Angeles says the Vanthiel family considered Noah to be more like a family member than a pet, and they were devastated when they found its partial remains in their house.

"My husband walked in the room and started screaming, so we knew something horrible had happened," Naisi Vanthiel says. The family's other dog, 10-month-old Niko, was found alone and shivering inside the home. More of Noah's remains and his collar were found on the other side of their complex, where a neighbor spotted the coyote. That night, a coyote attacked two other dogs in the community, killing one of them. It's unknown if the same coyote is responsible for those two attacks, but the Vanthiel family decided to put up flyers to warn everyone in the neighborhood and prevent further heartache.

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