I had a lot of experience with coyotes in my Framingham backyard that abutted the Ashland State forest conservation land (before I became MarlborougMan)... I had two dogs at the time, a siberian husky and my ex-wife had a lap dog. Coyotes were coming around almost nightly, and they were getting more and more bold. Some of them were around the size of my Siberian. Anyway, I ultimately cured the situation when we started fostering and then adopted a Great Pyrenees dog. The coyotes wanted nothing to do with a Great Pyrr. But during my issues I did some research and read a great book written by Jonathan Way called Suburban Howls. One of the things Way found is that coyotes on the eastern part of the country are actually cross-bred with Canadian red wolves... which is why our coyotes in this region are larger than coyotes out west (and earlier somebody mentioned that he noticed reddish fur). Way also helped to convince me NOT so shoot the coyotes, which was the direction I was heading before I read his book. The book gave me a real appreciation for the intelligence of these animals that are living amongst us in every city/town in the state. As Way explained to me (I had an email conversation with him before reading the book) the coyotes probably viewed my wife's small dog as food and my siberian as a threat to be dealt with if they could do so safely. They generally won't mess with larger dogs (like the 95 pound husky-shepard I have now) or the Great Pyrr that my ex has, as the larger dogs are more likely to fight back and cause injury, which is essentially a death sentence for a coyote.