Coyotes can get big too.
Had a couple that were hanging around our neighborhood (we're near irrigation ditches so random things come through the neighborhood from time to time) a couple were bedded down under a tree in our front yard. I didn't know they were there and let the dogs out when I went to check the mail.
My 95 pound pitbull took after the bigger of the two (the male) and was on his ass clear across the yard until the coyote hopped the fence and the pitbull body checked the fence.
The coyote was every bit as tall and long as my large dog. Not as thick but I'd have given that coyote at least 60 pounds if not more.
Fighting a dozen dogs that size is a no go for an unarmed human.
They back off if you kill the first one and make it scream. Kinda goes into their risk calculations that more will die.
I had a 3 dog pack, 100 lb German shepherd/husky and 80 lb Aussie/Burmese Mountain Dog, and oddly enough a half coyote about 50 lbs who was their leader.
We had every kind of interaction with wild coyotes you have described and can imagine. Most nights they would just come howl behind our house not 30 meters away.
Occasionally one of the bigger ones would give chase but they always returned without a fight. Other dogs in the neighborhood were not so lucky. I’ve heard a dog get killed by a pack in the early dawn after light snowfall when they move better than most animals…they hunt. And followers their tracks to the gruesome scene when full light out. But I wouldn’t charge into the forest in the dark to try and save it despite a good 15 minutes of yelps and struggle.
Once the Aussie disappeared for a few days, and at some point while missing I implored the Coyote Dog to take me to the missing one. The Coyote was more intelligent than any other dog I have been around, so when he seemed to understand and started leading me into the forest I followed.
We hiked steep wooded terrain for several miles and I trusted this animal that much, he was clearly taking me somewhere. So finally he stops and looks all proud and I’m standing in the middle of a massacre of small deer. Maybe a dozen or so in various states of decomposition, hundreds of ticks if not thousands embedded in rotting flesh.
This was a lions den or a big Coyote pack with the help of my dogs maybe killing deer and dragging them here.
Thinking lions I got out of there quick, but obviously it was a place of endless bones and flesh my dogs knew about. Eventually the missing dog was found a few miles deeper into the woods at a ski resort tied to a post. Maybe 6 miles from home through the woods.
I think my dogs fucked coyotes to, at least I saw the half Coyote laying in the driveway with a female a couple times, but he was a wild stray with a Coyote mother for a year before highway accident. The pound snipped him before my Uncle could rescue him out as he was first bystander at scene of accident who stopped to help. When my uncle died he joined the family and the bigger dogs followed him around for years as his protective escort.
That was his pack and they attacked at his bidding when intruder dogs or coyotes came by. I never saw the three of them lose a fight together. They played different roles but worked together in conflicts.
Although the mother Bear dispersed them pretty good and gave chase to the Coyote. Got about 6 inches from taking him out but he never slowed down and looked happpier than I’ve ever seen him escaping literally by the skin of her teeth. That’s how I’ll always remember him. Big ass smile as he barely escaped.
