A coyote made a meal of Colleen McDonald's pet Chihuahua. She heard a scream, stepped outside of her horse trailer in White Township, N.J. and saw Mindy for the last time, being carried away to the woods in the jaws of the coyote, according to the Express Times.
She tried to chase down the predator but lost track of it. When the coyote came back later that day, she went after it with a pitchfork until it ran off.
"It's very unnerving, and I just don't feel safe with it around," McDonald told the Times.
The coyote population is 3,000 and growing in the Garden State, although deadly dog attacks are rare.
"It's not an everyday occurrence," Betty Wysocki said. She's the animal control officer for the area."To think of somebody's pet being a meal for a coyote, as a person, that upsets me."
Colleen was told she could hire someone to trap the coyote. For now, she's carrying a handgun for protection when she's outside and she plans to get a bigger dog, but really misses Mindy, her companion for ten years.
"She loved to travel," McDonald told the paper. "She came with me all the time."
