This relaxing morning in South Carolina turned into a fight for survival real quick.
Try to put yourself in the shoes (or slippers) of this South Carolina man who had let out his Chihuahua “Roxie” for a morning stroll around the yard.
I’m sure this guy had done this exact same thing 100 times before, and never expected that the routine outside time would morph into a dangerous wildlife encounter.
Roxie started venturing to the outer portions of the yard, and it was around then when the dog owner Timothy Snipe noticed that a coyote was lurking nearby.
The chihuahua noticed the wild animal as well, and in typical “yappy dog” fashion, thought it was big enough to take it on and ran right towards it.
At this moment, Snipe went sprinting and yelling after his dog (in his slippers and robe) to try and save the day. He didn’t have time to think twice, because as he told Inside Edition:
“I thought it was going to grab her and take her back into the woods.”
Luckily for Timothy, his dog Roxie made a heel turn and quickly came prancing back towards the yard, but it wasn’t coming alone. The coyote was now in hot pursuit, and was heading for a collision course with Roxie’s owner.
The South Carolina resident bravely faced off against the coyote as his yappy Chihuahua ran past him, then later provided “backup” by barking at the coyote from a safe distance away. Snipe clearly wasn’t prepared to battle against the wild dog, though who really would be in his situation?
He went on to say in his interview:
“He actually jumped on me, and I fought him. The coyote actually bit me on my leg.”
The coyote quickly turned its attention from Roxie the dog to Timothy the dog owner, and as you’ll see in the video below, got a couple of good bites in on Snipe’s leg. In the heat of the moment, the South Carolina resident grabbed the coyote’s tail and picked it up, which actually bought himself some time to think.
As the coyote was temporarily immobilized by the tail pickup, Snipe looked around and came up with the smart idea of chucking the attacking animal into a nearby dumpster. That seemed like as good of an idea as any, so that’s exactly what he did, and that’s exactly where the coyote stayed until animal control was able to retrieve it.
Besides the bites, and the fact that Snipe had to hold the lids of the dumpster down to ensure the coyote wouldn’t get away, I’d say things went just about as well as they could have for Roxie and her owner.
And anytime Roxie goes outside now, she’ll be equipped with a spiky “anti-coyote” vest just in case another wild animal out there saw her as an easy meal.
I’d say between the spikes on Roxie’s pink vest and the action-movie-like instincts of Timothy, the little yappy dog is going to be just fine from here on out.
You can view the wild footage of the attack and rescue (and coyote slam dunk into the dumpster) below:
