Coyote attacks on family pets are in the rise and a couple in Chatsworth learned today when it happens, there is no place to turn.
The latest attack occurred this morning at the home of Sandra and Julian Parness.
They had let their two small dogs, a Chihuahua and a Chinese Crested, out into their fenced backyard when they heard the Chinese Crested scream.
By the time, Sandra Parness got to them, one dog was dead and the other so badly injured he had to be put down.
"It was horrible," Parness said.
Somehow, a predator, believed to a coyote, had gotten over a five foot concrete wall and into their backyard.
Coyotes have attacked animals in Orange County, to Altadena to now Chatsworth just in the last two weeks.
In Chatsworth, it took just a few minutes.
The Parnesses then spent 90 minutes on the phone trying to find a public agency that would do something about the coyotes.
"The sum total is this, It is a coyote problem and they don't do anything about it," said Julian Parness.
California's Department of Fish and Game allows a property owner to kill a so-called nuisance animal.
Los Angeles County will trap coyotes in unincorporated areas, but the reality is public policy does tend to favor non-interference with the animals.
Here's why: the coyotes tend to keep down the population of rodents and other vermin and for this, they are actually valued.
That is until a coyote actually enters a yard.
Sandra Parness recalled seeing coyotes a number of times in her neighborhood.
"It was just standing there looking at me. It was very frightening," she said.
But the city's animal control experts told her to just frighten it away by banging pots and pans.
