Crime & Safety

Mt. Kisco Woman Discusses Dog's Death from Coyote Attack

Mount Kisco's Kristin Porteus has lived in her home for about eight years. She never saw a single coyote in person, until Friday morning when she encountered three who came into her yard by surprise. 

What Porteus thought to be another morning for letting her dogs outside in her back yard took a sudden turn when she saw two coyotes appear from behind a shed. 

She responded by yelling at them. 

“Just making any kind of noise I could," she added. 

The first two coyotes took off, but Porteus said her husband stated there was another coyote behind her. She added that she was by a play set in the yard and the other coyote was by the shed with Roxy in its mouth. Her husband's yelling led the coyote to flee. Roxy was dropped but it was too late to save her life.

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Since that time, she has been "pretty petrified," adding that "when I let them out that day, I didn't see anything unusual."

Roxy was only three years old, having been adopted as a rescue dog. She was one of three dogs outside that morning, with the other two being her puppies. The remaining dogs, mixes of Chihuahua and Terrier, managed to get back inside.

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Since Roxy's death on Friday, Mount Kisco police have sent out an online alert through Nixle to warn people. News of the attack spread and has received coverage from local and regional media. 

The attack comes months after New Castle had its own share of reported coyote attacks that were met with two coyote expert talks. The discussions, held in May and June in downtown Chappaqua, included advice to do a technique called hazing, whether people attack coyotes by making loud noise and moving towards them.

Porteus suspects that there are other signs of coyotes on her street, Langeland Drive, which straddles Mount Kisco and New Castle. Examples she gave included disappearing cats, including her own, and a report she made to police about hearing an animal make a loud suffering noise on a recent night.

“Many cats have gone missing over the years," she said.

Porteus also described the coyotes she encountered as being comparable to a German Shepherd. 

“They were very big."

Going forward, Porteus is changing her routine to try and prevent another attack. She recalled bringing a pan outside so she can bang on it, and waiting for someone else to also be present. Porteus also plans to have a 6-foot fence erected, most of which would be on top of a stone wall system, to keep coyotes out.

“I'm constantly looking around now."


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