(Getty Images/David C Stephens)
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Laura Castanon says her encounter with four coyotes while walking her two dogs through Jamaica Plain's Franklin Park Monday night probably lasted only a few minutes, but felt like an hour.
Castanon described that night to WBZ NewsRadio's Laurie Kirby.
"It was a lovely night, almost a full moon, so I brought the dogs out there, you know, fresh snowfall, and thought I would let them run off-leash," she said. She said she knows that's not the best idea, "but the golf course seemed like a pretty safe spot!"
That's when she saw what looked like two dogs running toward her smaller dog, a 20-lb. miniature schnauzer.
"And I'm like, 'Oh, other dogs!' And they're not other dogs. They're two coyotes," she said.
The small dog, which "has a bit of a Napoleon complex" according to Castanon, took off running at the coyotes, scaring them off, but not for long.
"I look over my shoulder, and as far as I can tell, the coyotes have come back with reinforcements," she said. "There were four coyotes ... and they weren't like, racing at us, but they were definitely coming out of the woods and just sort of gently jogging in our direction."
Castanon said she was "freaking out" and yelling to try to scare the coyotes away, while getting both of her dogs back on leashes.
"If you run, you incite this chase instinct," she said. "As soon as I realized they were following me, I stopped and I scooped up the little dog, and I sort of yelled at them, lots of nonsense things that you yell, like 'Nobody here is a rabbit!' and 'Go home!'"
She said she looked for something to throw, but couldn't find anything. There was a bit of a "stand off," Castanon said, before she made a few aggressive steps toward them to get them to back off.
"I think in the moment, you can't be sensible and objective, right?" she said. "Something that you love is being threatened by some sort of outside force, and all logic goes out of the picture in that moment!"
She said she's probably not going back for any moonlit walks.
"I think we can all agree that dusk is when the coyotes own the golf course, and perhaps we can have it during the daytime, and we can share it like that."
WBZ NewsRadio's Laurie Kirby (@LaurieWBZ) reports