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The tiny dachshund who outlasted two coyotes
A neighbor had news for the rescue team. She had seen two coyotes chase a little dachshund across her golf course, and the team already knew there were coyotes out there. more
Lola's Lucky Day, a rescue group in Houston, Texas, had seen coyotes on its game cameras every single night while trying to catch a different stray in the area. Nobody had seen the dachshund before that Wednesday. Against two coyotes on open ground, no one gave him much chance of making it to morning.
Then he turned up on the neighbor's security camera the next morning. Samantha Zimmer says the team “had no clue” how such a small dog “could outsmart or outrun these coyotes” in all that open space. Her best guess is that he found a spot to burrow, since dachshunds are great diggers, and waited out the night. The whole neighborhood was thrilled he had made it.
SaveOnce the team caught him, they could see how rough things had been. Carlos was about 6 years old, not neutered and very skinny, and nobody knew how long he had been on his own. He was also a long-haired dapple that everybody was in love with, loose in a really nice part of town.
Surely someone was looking for a purebred dog like that. The team searched for his owner and found no one. “We don't know why he ended up there,” Zimmer says, “but he's safe now.”
Safe did not mean relaxed, at first. Carlos was so shy that someone had to chase him around the yard, or keep a leash on him, just to pick him up. He was happy to be around the other dogs, just not much of a player.
SaveWhat he did join was the couch. “If you couldn't find him, he was on the couch,” Zimmer says. For her, that change is why rescue is so rewarding. “You'll have seen him shivering in the rain somewhere, and now this dog's under your blanket.”
She is quick to add that rescue is about people too. Sometimes it means helping them keep their animals, or find the ones that slip out. Her husband does the work with her.
The group gets dogs healthy in Texas, then sends them to partner rescues that find the homes. Carlos rode north to Wisconsin, where a possible adopter was waiting. She works from home and already has two dachshunds, which sounds about right for a dog who is never far from the couch.
