I could sneak up on a coyote if I’ve a mind to! Jack Elam
A Labor Day morning, looking a bit more like the “May Gray”, but fresh after an evening rainshower. Dexter, Comet and I walk around the block and up along the trail behind the school and our subdivision. Comet is focused, his purpose clear. If it doesn’t move, pee on it. Dexter is less-focused. A bird gets his attention. I tug him suddenly avoiding Comet’s mis-directed (intentional?) pee stream. 
And then, Dexter’s attention goes up the hill. Less than a hundred feet away behind a thin wire fence marked with a “habitat conservation area” and “no trespassing”, we see three coyotes – Mom, Dad, and a teenager – hanging back as teens are wont to do, passing by, heading the direction we had just come. Both of my dogs are leashed so I know I have control of my “pack”. However, Comet is focused on a creosote bush and never sees them. Dexter whimpers a bit, and then comes along looking backward the whole time.
Momma coyote turns back to gather up a distracted Junior. It’s not time to play with the neighborhood strangers, I imagine the coyote telling the younger one.
I don’t mind seeing the occasional coyote in the open-spaces around San Diego. For much of the last sixty years that my house has stood, the ridge behind my neighborhood, was mostly one undeveloped ridge east and north to the San Diego River riparian area. With the housing now on the ridge, gophers were pushed out into our homes, but there are too many large dogs here for the coyotes to follow. However, the development on the ridge favors smaller dogs and more rabbits. I don’t think the coyote family will go hungry.
It's a Dog's Life 