r/Seattle • u/BJarv • Mar 18 '26
Animals Coyote having a blast in my backyard a couple weeks ago in Northgate
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u/lizzie1hoops West Seattle Mar 18 '26
I love how your backyard looks like it's in the forest :)
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
UGH, me too 😍
What a beautiful place we live in 😭
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u/gingerbread_slutbarn Tacoma Mar 19 '26
Bahaha. I have slowly moved from Bellingham, to Lynnwood, now moving to Tacoma. It is a beautiful state!
Found a place 1k less than currently though. So away we go!
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u/sdyawg Northgate Mar 19 '26
Bah, don't let everyone know how magical we have it in Maple Leaf! I can't wait till actual Spring when I can spend all my free time in the backyard tossing peanuts to Steller's Jays and watching for the neighborhood hawks.....
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u/THEBLUEBRICK99 Mar 18 '26
I would hate living that far north, but I agree your backyard is beautiful
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u/BJarv Mar 19 '26
Thanks! It is definitely more north than ideal. Do you like where you live? Are you closer to main city neighborhoods?
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u/THEBLUEBRICK99 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
No Idea why this sub was suggested in my feed. I love in Hawaii 😂
Live*
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u/BJarv Mar 19 '26
oh LOL, north like, in washington, not like, north of Seattle 🤣
Im sure Hawaii is great! I can't deal with temperatures >65 myself so I love it here.
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u/THEBLUEBRICK99 Mar 19 '26
I dislike anything below 50 so it's perfect for me here lol. Glad you enjoy the cold but it's not for me
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u/megalinity 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Mar 18 '26
CAN I PET DAT DAWG?!
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u/spaceman_spiffy Mar 18 '26
If not fren why fren shaped?
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u/DramaLlamadary Mar 18 '26
WHY SO FRIEND
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u/notoriousrdc 🚆build more trains🚆 Mar 18 '26
When my dog was about six months old, we were out for a walk and a very large coyote wandered out from some bushes just up the sidewalk from us. And my dumbass puppy started bouncing around and play-bowing at the coyote! Thankfully, the coyote just lolled its tongue out at us and trotted off into the park across the street. My pup was very sad that we didn't follow his new "friend."
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
Saw the other coyote video in Northgate so thought I'd post my own. I've seen a pair of coyotes walking around my neighborhood often, but this time one was playing right outside my window! He was doing this for 30 minutes straight. Major puppy behavior. Definitely don't try to interact with them! But I'm very lucky to get such a close look at one while it felt so safe
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u/Toadlessboy Defected to Portland Mar 18 '26
what was he paying with?
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u/PensiveObservor Mar 18 '26
My dog (and more often my cat) will randomly toss small sticks or leaves up in the air like they are trying to escape, then pounce on them when they fall. It’s predator playtime.
(The cat uses any scrap of firewood or paper. She’s housebound.)
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u/FernandoNylund I Brake For Slugs Mar 18 '26
Yes, lol! My (also indoor) cats go wild for crinkly plastic, like the ring around the lid of a sour cream or ice cream container, and Nerf blaster balls, respectively. We've discovered caches of each in a corner of the basement 😆
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u/nappingonarock Mar 18 '26
Looks like it got a mouse to me.
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u/Toadlessboy Defected to Portland Mar 18 '26
that would make sense. i remember my dog playing with a crayfish he grabbed out of a stream the same way
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u/SolarTsunami Mar 18 '26
Haha yeah my childhood dog would dig gophers out of the ground and do the same thing before putting their slobber covered corpses in my bed for safe keeping... usually while I was asleep.
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Mar 18 '26
I love that we have coyotes and wildlife in this city, and that for the most part we can co-exist 🥹
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u/Key-Distribution-944 Lake Forest Park Mar 18 '26
There’s a pair of bobcats in my neighborhood. I’ve seen them with my own eyes and I still don’t believe they’re here.
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u/Redobite Mar 19 '26
You love it until your cat doesn't come back.
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u/more_paul I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Mar 19 '26
It’s eating the neighborhood cats. You know that, right?
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u/spookyboog2 Mar 18 '26
I posted the other one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them act like this! Super interesting.
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Mar 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/sarahenera 🦝 🐒 JIMOTHY Mar 18 '26
r/coyote would love this! 🥹✨
Eta: meant to comment this on the main, my bad.
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u/ShezaGoalDigger Mar 18 '26
“Felt cute. Might eat your cat later…” - The Coyote probably.
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u/vxtmh Mar 18 '26
if that's what it takes to make people keep their cats inside, then I'm all for it
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u/_Goose_ Mar 18 '26
“So I said “it sounds like you’re just feeding shelter cats to coyotes” and then his daughter started crying.”
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u/Specific_Day4678 Mar 18 '26
That is so cute, I love when they forget they’re terrifying and just act like goofy dogs 😂
I get them trotting down my street in Ballard around 2 or 3 am and it’s always this “I’m on Very Important Business, do not perceive me” vibe.
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u/RecliningWatchdog Mar 18 '26
They don’t hurt humans 😂
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u/The_Hoopla Mar 18 '26
Not normally, but 20% of the urban coyote's diet is literally house cat.
Coyotes are super keen on eating your pets.
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u/MetallicGray Mar 18 '26
loose house cats. Fixed that for you.
Keep your cats inside lack a responsible owner and they won’t die to coyotes, cars, dogs, accidents, kill native wildlife, etc.
They’re keen on eating pets of irresponsible owners that put their pets in situations where they could be eaten.
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u/The_Hoopla Mar 18 '26
Fixed that for you.
Yeah I'm clearly not implying coyotes have learned to pick locks lmao
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u/hrnnnn Mar 20 '26
I saw one with a lock-picking set the other day so they’re definitely trying!
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u/AllBrainsNoSoul Olympic Hills Mar 18 '26
For the most party, yes, but they do stalk small children.
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u/Healthy-Neat-2989 Mar 18 '26
They hurt little humans in recent years…
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u/bendar1347 chinga la migra Mar 18 '26
Coyotes? In the Seattle area? I don't think that's true.
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u/Healthy-Neat-2989 Mar 18 '26
There were bites last year in Bellevue and Renton. So not Seattle exactly, but the Coyotes don’t know that…
ETA - I’m not trying to be anti-coyote. I think they are an essential part of the ecosystem. I just want people to know to be careful.
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u/valianyears Mar 19 '26
I have a theory that as we continue to encroach on them and they start on the path to domesticated co-existence, we’ll see less and less bites
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u/Casanova_Kid I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Mar 19 '26
Your theory should probably take you to the opposite conclusion. More opportunity = more chances of a negative interaction - even if there are much more positive interactions as well. i.e there are significantly more dogs bites per year than coyote bites; but then... many people don't keep pet coyotes.
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u/KnotSoSalty Mar 18 '26
Idk if your neighborhood is like mine but we’re overrun with bunnies occasionally.
Life finds a way for balance.
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
I saw the coyote pair roll past my house one night, then less than an hour later there were a pair of bunnies chilling in my front yard, right where the coyotes had been. It was like they were taunting the yotes
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u/SkyerKayJay1958 Mar 18 '26
I had a P Patch at NCCa few years back and it was decimated by rabbits one year. Next year the coyotes came
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u/SwissQueso Mar 19 '26
I was stationed to Whidbey Island for a month when I was in the Navy. That base has so many shitloads of bunnies. Ive always wondered if thats part of the reason all the Bald Eagles are up there.
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u/LadyPo 🚆build more trains🚆 Mar 18 '26
This little one is so pure and wholesome! The beautiful background and sunshine makes it look like a Disney animation or something. How adorable!
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
People are liking this enough that I got a few more videos together and put them in this drive link https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1VFdIhOA_Re6Cvm4dWqLrtSbUIivpv93u
The first video he REALLY has the zoomies
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u/jokomul I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Mar 18 '26
this was nice to watch today, thanks for sharing
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u/dragonlady_88 Mar 18 '26
Let the Seattle urban carnivores project know! They track the health of our urban carnivores :)
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u/Healthy-Neat-2989 Mar 18 '26
I love this. They are frequently on my camera, but only in a stealthy passing by fashion. Last year a pup would sit outside my fence and stare at our sliding glass door. At us or at his reflection, I don’t know. Then my big dog would scare him off and a little bit later, he’d creep cautiously back up and check us out again. He grew out of it or moved on though. Hasn’t happened in a long time.
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u/Shayden-Froida Mar 18 '26
My 3 large dogs got out of the yard recently at 2am and I found them interacting with a pair of coyotes down the road (I'm rural-ish eastside). It was odd to watch, as none of them seemed to be in an aggressive stance; mine wandered off to sniff, the coyotes sort "bounded" in the same direction (not slunk down), but my arrival caused them to retreat and observe. Also, it turns out coyotes can bark like a dog in addition to the freaky howling.
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u/Feisty-Delivery2047 Mar 18 '26
Looks like a nice layer of soft moss, perfect for jumping around in
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u/ctjanjic1 Mar 19 '26
I actually wondered if the grass or moss is what encouraged the playtime instinct
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u/sarahenera 🦝 🐒 JIMOTHY Mar 18 '26
I can’t stop watching this. It’s so sweet and beautiful to see a coyote enjoying themselves like this.
I was walking my lab in the evening six weeks ago in my neighborhood in Wedgwood and a pair came out of a yard, observed us, and carefully watched us as they trotted past down the road.
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u/Grayapesnuts Mar 18 '26
I just love when we see animals smile and play! Something we can all relate too.
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u/victorinseattle Queen Anne Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Hey, congrats! Free doggo!
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
I wanted to pet him so badly but I couldn't interrupt his alone time
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u/Shayden-Froida Mar 18 '26
Visit #WeaveTheCoyote on youtube. There are vids of his cat pouncing on Weave.
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u/Yumi_in_the_sun Mar 18 '26
This is exactly how my dog plays. I've never had a dog that threw her own toys before. It's kinda wild.
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u/Zenarian-369 Mar 18 '26
Awesome post OP. I see them cruising around Northgate on my walks too. Great footage.
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u/grapemike Mar 18 '26
So cute! I was driving on a dirt road in Renton on Monday night. Headlights showed on a young coyote and it responded by springing about six feet up on all four limbs, boing!, and over a fence. Love it
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u/JaeTheOne Mar 18 '26
I wonder if its the same one ive seen a few times over by the creek....they have a buddy that roams with them as well.
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u/likeitgrey 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 Mar 18 '26
Awww I love when it just plops down on its back at the end of the video
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u/rockycore 🚆build more trains🚆 Mar 18 '26
Congrats on your new wild doggy. What did you name it?
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u/bendar1347 chinga la migra Mar 18 '26
Asking the real questions. He looks like a Bradley to me. Maybe Carl?
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u/transandtrucks Mar 18 '26
this reminds me of when my dog tosses around a singular almond like there's no better toy
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u/ProductiveAnibal Mar 18 '26
Mate, that coyote's living better than half of us, just out there having the time of its life in Northgate.
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u/strawberrygreens Mar 18 '26
Looks identical to my husky playing with a sock he knows he shouldn't have.
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u/Username_de_random Mar 18 '26
How tall is your fence/how did they get in?
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u/BJarv Mar 18 '26
Others were saying they can jump fences, but I don't have a fence! I am up against the creek
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u/FreshwaterFryMom 🦝🦝 We 💕 Jimothy Chalamet 🦝🦝 Mar 18 '26
This is so wholesome ♥️ glad he got to have a little fun and frolic around!
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u/_thicculent_ Olympia Mar 18 '26
Awww. Looks like that coyote is helping you with your Greeble infestation! R/greebles lol
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u/AccountAccording5126 Belltown Mar 18 '26
I would be tempted to leave all kinds of toys for him. Then he'd bring his friends and then I'd have a coyote probably and would be unable to leave the house
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u/ParticularYak4401 Mar 18 '26
My friends Airedale terrier acts similarly. Maybe they are descended from the same line of goofiness.
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u/mankowonameru Mar 19 '26
My backyard in Northgate just gets addicts and people stealing wiring. Can we trade?
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u/Over_Interaction_925 Mar 18 '26
Aww beautiful backyard coyote having a blast. Nature can be beautiful at times ❤️
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u/unhappy_strangers2 Mar 19 '26
I will never understand how some people think its okay to kill these majestic and important creatures. Look at them frolicking and enjoying life just like our pet dogs.
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u/shoddydisability Mar 19 '26
that coyote is living its best life fr, just out here vibing with whatever it found lol
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u/RevolutionaryOnion16 Mar 21 '26
I would’ve blasted that thing if it were on my property. Hope you don’t have pets in your neighborhood, but if you do and they go missing, these things are the culprits!
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u/Minormeow Columbia City Mar 22 '26
One of these coyotes that lives in the little woodsy area behind my house just ate my cat. Sighhhhh....
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u/carlidew Mar 19 '26
I saw a coyote in my Beacon Hill neighborhood last weekend and thought I was crazy. Good to know they roam all over Seattle.
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u/Neat_Pension3732 Mar 19 '26
to my eyes, it is like “Coyote dancing alone till euphoria-tic collapse” :)
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u/RegularOk3231 Mar 19 '26
What was he throwing around?!? This is exactly what my elder cat does when she’s playing with a toy when she thinks no one is watching and I love it
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u/waggishcomplexity_73 Mar 19 '26
that's a gorgeous coyote ngl, northgate really said "urban wilderness moment" 🐺✨
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u/sputtertots Mar 19 '26
The good place with a safe space. So adorable to see them relaxed enough to goof off, tossin a stick and having some fun in the sun and the shade. What a glorious day! :)
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u/raspyarchipelago9 Mar 19 '26
Could be playing with whatever it found, coyotes do that a lot around here.
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u/regularappendix9 Mar 19 '26
That's a pretty cool encounter, though I'd probably be nervous about my dog or cat going out there unsupervised after seeing that.
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u/2catswashington Mar 20 '26
aww so cute. If you have a dog toy or something I would leave it out for them to play with too.
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u/winterharvest That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. Mar 18 '26
The False Spring gets us all