Your 15 minutes of fame!

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Did the bite break the skin? Did the coyote show any sign of rabies?

That is also my concern.

flashguy

Not sure if I believe this. We're going to need a dental impression from the OP.

The story:

Walking the 3 dogs (2 Bouvier des Flandres and one Maltese) at 6:30 a.m. in a public park that is well over 70 acres... walking down a mown path next to a small copse of trees and brush, I see what I thought was a fox coming 'round the copse of trees... it was ambling, as slow as you please. I figured it would scurry off as soon as it realized we were 50 yards away.

It did see us, we were standing still now, and it just kept ambling straight at us... it wasn't agitated, wasn't stalking, wasn't hurrying. By now, I realize it's a very small coyote.

The wife and I started yelling and waving our arms. My attention was 100% on the coyote but I don't recall that any of our dogs reacted. At least, they weren't straining on their leashes to get at the coyote nor to get away from the coyote.

As it approached my wife, who had moved away with our male Bouv and the male Maltese... it never sped up nor did it slow down. She bent down to pick up the small dog, figuring that's what the coyote was after.

The coyote ever so slowly nipped her right on the butt... I started charging the coyote while trying to keep the female Bouv from getting at the coyote... actions which are counter to each other! I didn't want to drop the girl's leash as I believe she would have started a fight...

But the coyote just looked at me and walked past us... at basically the same pace it had approached us. The wife and I are still yelling... the coyote walked away down the mown path we had just come up.

We went back to our vehicle, I was looking at my wife for rips in her shorts or blood... there was a small circle of moisture, about the size of a quarter. She pulled down her shorts and I could see a pinch that had formed a blood blister... it was seeping blood.

The wife called the New Canaan cops, they rolled up with an EMS truck. The wife is a physician. She called Infectious Disease from the parking lot:

"I've got a patient I'm sending you this morning. It's me!"

She wasn't tested for rabies. The ID doc saw blood and immediately gave her tetanus and immunoglobulin shots. She started the rabies series that morning when she got to work.

A producer at NBC News read about the bite in the local online paper the afternoon of the day it happened. That producer knows my sister-in-law who lives 5 mins from our house. Producer asks SIL, "You don't know who this woman is, do you?" So it was the SIL that gave NBC News my wife's number.

The wife has one more shot next week for a total of four or five shots. She's feeling flush, lethargic and very stiff at the injection points (her shoulders).

This clip ran on Channel 4 NYC 11 pm news and was repeated every half hour on their 4 am to 7 am news program the next morning.

The whole "escorting away from a den" theory is bull. A coyote would never den up in the very center of a mown field that has 40+ humans walking past nearly every day. It also ambled off and never tried to drive us or lure us away from the spot.

I believe that New Canaan doesn't want the phrase "rabid coyote on the loose in New Canaan" in the news. It's a very upscale township.

quote:

Originally posted by BigCity:
She is cute. You, not so much.

I often think... why the hell did my wife settle for marrying me?

I get in the media pretty regularly with my job (J. D. Power) and they had asked the wife. I don't give a rip about being on TV but I thought it would be fun for the wife.

I was upstairs in my office and she asked me to come down to the front lawn and stand next to her.

"You can be the adoring husband." OK, I can easily do that.

I wasn't planning on saying anything but the reporter asked me a few questions and I answered. You can see I'm not even wearing shoes... hadn't shaved. At least I was wearing something other than pajamas. Then they asked to see the dogs...

In my experienced-media-person voice I asked "Oh, you want some B roll footage?... Sure, we'll bring 'em down."

I didn't even notice the camera man was rolling on anything other than the dogs.

The javelina look scary. Glad you were ok.

And the story mostly happened the way it MTTaylor said. But he was in the back yard when they came and I suggested you come.

I am just happy none of the dogs were hurt.

Tell them you have one of those 700 rounds per second magazine clips for your AK-357 super assault squeegee and after 4 minutes of sustained fire there wasn't anything left of that Coyote but a small stain. BTW, you get extra points if they actually broadcast that load of malarkey.

Carrying a Taurus The Judge finally seems like a good idea.

At a gas field I worked on, each day the kitchen helper delivered a 'break' tray, (pastries, fruit etc.) to the office about 80' from the kitchen.

A coyote started to follow him each day, and each day he gave the coyote a cookie. One day he had forgotten to put a cookie in his pocket, and the break tray being wrapped up tightly didn't help him.

The coyote took a bite our of his rear. Being remote with no on site medical, he had to be flown out, a biologist had to be flown in to find, kill and decapitate the coyote.

After 4 days he found the coyote and the head was sent to University of Fairbanks to be examined for rabies.

When it was all done we estimated the cost at $12,000 everything included, all for the lack of a .10 cent cookie.

Neel, that is some story

Not feeding wildlife being the key lesson there.

Expensive dumb mistake.