APACHE JUNCTION, Ariz. — A dog taken by a coyote from its home in Apache Junction was saved by a neighbor who lost his own dog, in the same way, two weeks earlier.
On Wednesday, Peanut, a 4-year-old chihuahua-pug mix, was playing in the front yard of her home near Tomahawk Road and Scenic Street, when her owner Julie McClintock said she heard her yelp.
“I was getting ready for a doctor’s appointment when she first began barking, but when she let a loud shrill, I ran outside,” she said.
But Peanut was gone.
“I knew it was a coyote, I just started bawling, she was nowhere,” McClintock said.
As McClintock was lamenting the loss of her beloved pet, her neighbor Mike Macy was backing out of his driveway and saw the coyote with Peanut in its mouth.
After losing Bear, a black yorkie-Shih Tzu mix, two weeks earlier, Macy said he had to step in and save Peanut.
“I kept on seeing him between the houses and then at the last house I jumped the fence before it could get to the trees where they go,” he said. “I yelled at him and then he dropped her, she was full of blood.”
Macy said he knocked on a couple of nearby doors trying to find Peanut’s owner, until he did. He then rushed McClintock and Peanut to the vet and pitched in to help cover her medical bills.
“She had a lung puncture and a wound on the other side where the coyote had got her, and three staples on the other side,” McClintock said. “Peanut is part of the family, she’s not a dog, she’s my family, she’s my baby”
Peanut is expected to be okay, but still has a long road to recovery.
“It’s just amazing that someone actually got a dog out of a coyote’s mouth, because I’ve lost two other dogs to coyotes,” McClintock said.
Arizona Game and Fish said they have not seen an increase in coyote activity in that community but added that incidents like Peanut’s are not uncommon.
“I was just glad to be there at the right place at the right time,” Macy said. “I saved her, it was worth it, it’d do it again.”
McClintock has set up a GoFundMe account to help cover Peanut’s medical bills, if you’d like to help click here.
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