Wendy: we have done the same thing with rodents on our property...we did until one day we caught this little mouse, it was cute, had one ear bent over, we caught it in a live trap and took it about one block away and released it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a homing mouse, ha! a week later we caught it again. Some little guy with the bent ear. From that time on, unfortunely, they meet their demise quickly in traps that kill them, (especially since we no longer have any cats!)

 Quote: sheila buckley

I was in a similar situation as Jenni except it ended in a tussle between my dog and 3 coyotes. The first 2 succeeded in separating us and a 3rd came out threatening me; six feet in front of me snarling, I don't know if he would have attacked me because my dog returned after being chased off by the other two and jumped on the third.

As an aside, I would be very concerned about any wild animal willing to brazenly approach a human being in broad daylight.

If either your dog, or you are ever bitten by any wild animal, please consider the rabies vaccine at that point.

Typically, a wild animal has no interest in attacking a dog accompanied by a human. They may "stalk" or "observe" from a distance and attempt to lure the dog away from the human, but it's pretty rare and out of charector for a coyote to approach humans.

A wild animal that isn't afraid of humans, should make humans afraid of how sick that animal probably is.

 Quote: sharon empson

Wendy: we have done the same thing with rodents on our property...we did until one day we caught this little mouse, it was cute, had one ear bent over, we caught it in a live trap and took it about one block away and released it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a homing mouse, ha! a week later we caught it again. Some little guy with the bent ear. From that time on, unfortunely, they meet their demise quickly in traps that kill them, (especially since we no longer have any cats!)

Speaking of the infamous homing mouse....

One of my daughters lives in the Berkshires, and they get a lot of field-mouse intrusion into the detached garage, sunroom, etc. This local guy traps them (basically "eat the cheese and the cage falls down around you") with several traps at once and then the next day comes back and takes all the mice to "a nice farm out in the country where they can run and play." Actually, he says (and I believe him) that he takes them all far from any houses and lets them go. $5 a mouse.

But how far is far enough? I might ask my daughter to look for identifying characteristics next time and then see if the same bent ear (or tattoo or earrings or whatever) shows up again in a few days.

 Quote: sharon empson

Wendy: we have done the same thing with rodents on our property...we did until one day we caught this little mouse, it was cute, had one ear bent over, we caught it in a live trap and took it about one block away and released it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a homing mouse, ha! a week later we caught it again. Some little guy with the bent ear. From that time on, unfortunely, they meet their demise quickly in traps that kill them, (especially since we no longer have any cats!)

Sharon: oh trust me, i've done that. I've done worse! it involved a teeny tiny little baby mouse I found trapped in a glass vase underneath my sink. There were 2 in there but the other one was already dead. Im not going to go into detail because others on here will either laugh at me or consider me crazy, but lets just say that little mouse is probably a large mouse living in a field just outside of stoney creek.

hmmmm...I don't have kids so maybe my "mothering" instinct is coming out in weird ways?? lol

 Quote: connie sutherland

But how far is far enough? I might ask my daughter to look for identifying characteristics next time and then see if the same bent ear (or tattoo or earrings or whatever) shows up again in a few days.

lol...Connie, you should get your daughter to do that, try to mark a mouse or something. That guy could be making a fortune off her by letting the mice go right outside on her property so they can fine their way back "home"!

I've helped mice too. When I lived on the third floor of a house in the city, I never had any mice (5 cats) but one fall I decided not to sweep the leaves off of my deck. I found a barely-alive mouse under some backpacking clothes that had been sitting in a pile for ages, took it into the Wildlife Centre, but it died

A few weeks later, I was reading on my bed, when suddenly my semi-feral cat jumps down, and I see him grab a mouse just like that. I got up, said 'Lear! Drop it!' and he did....this poor mouse was in the centre of a triangle of me, Lear, and my oldest cat Mitch. I scooped him up in a wool hat.

I was worried he needed antibiotics if Lear had broken the skin, b/c cats have that stuff in their saliva (yes, I know, you're all laughing at me) and the wildlife centre was closed, so I took a 45-minute trip on the subway/streetcar to the Humane Society, who told me, 'We'll just kill him. We usually do for all the wild animals' (note to self re: the Humane Society's wildlife program). So me and the mouse went back home, and I stuck him in a cat carrier reinforced w/cardboard to stop escape, and put him in with the rabbits so that he wouldn't have cats around all night. Some food and water and bedding and he was set.

The next morning I couldn't even see him, and there was no movement, and I was sure he died in the night. I was leaning in to look for his little body when suddenly a small furry thing propelled itself straight up and almost hit me in the eye. Mice can jump REALLY high as a percentage of their own height!

So I went downstairs, took him into the backyard, and let him go and left some peanut butter crackers around in case he was hungry. And I stopped leaving the door to the deck open until I'd cleaned up the leaves.

You know you've gone too far to help a mouse when you've got a little syringe of sugar water to try and help an ailing, dying mouse.


Lord, what was I thinking.

Jenn: ok now i don't feel so bad or like such a marshmallow because i have a desire to save rodents. (note, i don't do it all the time...just that teeny tiny little guy)

I used a box, a few cheerio's and a spoonful of water.

the little guy was just skin and bones when i found him.

 Quote: John Vanek

 Quote: Jenni Williams

Lately, around here, they are luring male dogs by sending a lone female in heat...it's creepy.

I managed to get my 2 to fuss and run straight back to the house. That was the last time I walked back there w/them. I grew up in those woods, played by myself back there all the time...with my Cocker Spaniel. No way could I do that now. They are all over the place, and it's all b/c we have built townhouses everywhere they used to live.

Sure you haven't been reading Jack London?


A coyote will not attack a grown person, you really have nothing to worry about.

Um, where did I say I was worried about a coyote attacking a grown person? I believe my concern was obviously directed toward my dogs. Several Lab-sized dogs have been killed in that subdivision lately. Dogs I knew. The coyotes seem to prefer dogs on leashes, actually; they're trapped. No loose large dogs-only loose little dogs and large dogs on tie-outs or leashes.

I have saved a field mouse who came indoors too. It's crazy, I know, but I rationalized it that he didn't mean to be indoors, probably wanted to go back to his field ..... Probably had a family waiting out there ....

I also remember trying to save countless animals that a cat i used to have would bring home to "play" with.

You think he would learn that bringing them underneath my bedroom window meant that he was going to have to forefit the item.

I have fond memories from when I was a kid of running around the neighbourhood after my cat (he had a baby rabbit) in my pj's at 2am in them morning with my dad yelling at me from the porch to get back in the house and leave the cat alone! But I couldn't do it. Even though I know the fate of the rabbit was not going to be happy, i still had to try and save them whenever I could.

anyone think will's going to be a bit put out that his Coyote thread has been highjacked by the ladies telling their storied about saving mice and other little rodents???