A coyote in the front yard of a Southern California home was eyeing a cat that was peering outside behind a baby gate and screen door.
After a few moments, the predator decided to pounce and ran straight into the baby gate and bounced off. The coyote retreated but gave it another go, again ramming into the baby gate and being thwarted.
The coyote repeatedly approached the front door before deciding to move on.
The encounter in Mission Viejo was captured on a doorbell camera. KTLA posted the video on YouTube.
“One of the reasons we like to keep that screen door and baby gate there is she likes to sit on the rug and look out here because we have a lot of bunnies, squirrels and lizards,” Cindy Stalnaker, referring to her cat, Maddy, explained to NBC. “But at night, it’s bunny time, so she likes to watch them.”
Sunday night around 11, Stalnaker and her husband were watching TV when they heard a “loud bang.”
“My husband was like, ‘What the heck was that?’” Stalnaker told NBC.
The doorbell camera showed the coyote lurking around the front door before futilely attempting to break into the house to get the cat.
“He came around just a shot and pow, pow, pow into that metal baby gate,” Stalnaker told NBC. “He wasn’t just walking up and [tapping]. He backed up on the sidewalk and got a running start.”
One wonders what might have happened had the baby gate not been behind the screen door.
