A Burnaby man and his family are celebrating their dog's resilience today after she was attacked by a pack of coyotes along a Burnaby Mountain trail on July 30.
The Linklater's one-year-old coonhound, Addy, was out for a run with Tim Linklater - something he's been doing with the family dog for years.
"I jog everyday and my running partner is my dog," Linklater said. "There's a trail that we hit every second day ... that runs alongside (Kinder Morgan's) south fence."
While Linklater and Addy were running down the hill along the Burnaby Mountain trail, they came upon another jogger and dog. As Linklater approached, the other dog jumped back and, at first, he thought he'd startled it. After pausing for a moment to see if he'd scared the dog, he turned back to Addy only to see her running after a coyote - the real reason why the other dog had backed away.
"My dog got lured into this culvert and then that's when - on the other side (of the culvert) - the attack took place," he recounted.
Linklater and the other jogger stood outside the culvert trying to see what was happening or if Addy was going to run back out, but she didn't and after a couple of minutes he knew he had to do something if he was going to save his dog.
"I'm sitting there helpless. I knew something was going on and I knew it was a secured area so it wouldn't be another dog," he said.
Linklater ran back up the hill to the Kinder Morgan gate and called to the security guard to let him in. Together, the men ran over to where Addy had been cornered into a bush near the fence.
"Fortunately, she ran into the brush," he said.
Addy's defensive manoeuvre - one she learned while being chased by other dogs at the dog park - may have saved her life, Linklater added.
"I'm grateful because if she ran ... that's one of the coyotes common tactics, they'll run down their prey, and they'll pounce on them when it's tired," he said.
Addy was eventually coaxed out of her hiding spot and taken to a New Westminster veterinary clinic where she received emergency surgery to stitch up the bite marks on her back legs.
"She's doing OK now. She's limping; She's got her cone of shame on, her legs are all sewn up (and) it's two more weeks of healing," he said.
Later that day, Bob Love, from Kinder Morgan, contacted the Linklaters offering to pay for all the veterinary expenses, which came as quite the surprise, Linklater said.
"Wow, that helped, because my wife and kids were all upset ... and I'm in the dog house because we have a $900 vet bill and then Kinder Morgan graciously offered to pay," he said.
This isn't the first coyote encounter Linklater has had on his runs; often he sees coyotes sitting along the trail. He's also noticed many missing dog and cat posters in the area, pets that may have been snatched up by the resident packs.
Conservation Officer Jack Trudgian agrees there's been a spike in the coyote population across the Lower Mainland and people should be careful when out enjoying the trails, especially because most coyotes still have their pups with them.
"It's not very often you hear of a pack of coyotes trying to get a bigger dog because they're very protective of themselves, they don't want to be injured," he said. "They could have been a family group."
For more information on coyote safety, visit www.env.gov.bc.ca/cos/info/wildlife_human_interaction/docs/coyotes.html.
