Florida Dog Owners Fear Flying Menace

[snopes]

Some northwest Florida residents are worried because they believe hawks are swooping down from the sky and attacking their small dogs.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071108/D8SPPRKO0.html

Solution: get a bigger dog.

Sorry, that's mean. Seriously though, if you have a dog that only weighs a few pounds (the Pomeranian in the article actually weighs about 1/3 as much as what my skinniest cat does, and she was the runt of her litter and is only about 18 months old!), you need to (pardon the expression) watch it like a hawk.

Most carnivores probably view a dog that size as an appetizer... sorta like a rabbit. Except for really REALLY tiny carnivores, like some fish and lizards and things like shrews. Maybe a weasel would think twice, but they're aggressive little things when they're hungry so that would be a toss up.

In spite of my somewhat flippant attitude, I really do feel bad for owners of small dogs... everyone makes fun of your dog, wild animals view him as a mobile appetizer, and unlike cats you can't just keep him inside. And now hawks... just ain't right.

[ButterscotchCat]

My neighbor had a beautiful black cat. He used to transport it back and forth from his business (which was near open area and a riverbed). He said that one day an eagle swooped down and flew off with his cat. I know that birds can harrass cats and small dogs. But to have one actually carried away is scary.

[Lancastrian]

I don't think this is going to be a problem for all but the smallest cats and dogs. Raptors can only carry off so much weight at a time.

[llewtrah]

Couple of weeks back I had a query from an owner who lost a cat to a brid of prey. She'd enclose her garden to keep the cats safe from roaming or from marauding land-based predators, but hadn't reckoned on avian predators. The cat taken was a small animal, but if a bird of prey tries to take a much heavier animal it can still do lethal damage with claws (some don't aim to carry the prey off, they aim to eat it in situ).

[Tarquin Farquart]

I misread this as being about flying dogs. D'oh!

Just one more entry in an ever growing list of why I keep my cats inside heh. Ny dog, no real need to worry... it would have to be one insane bird of prey to even try attacking a 90+ pound dog.

[Troberg]

I don't think this is going to be a problem for all but the smallest cats and dogs. Raptors can only carry off so much weight at a time.

They can strike hard enough to break the neck of a larger animal. A friend of mine who is a hunter once saw a large bird of prey, probably an eagle, strike a fox so hard that it broke it's neck and one eye popped out of it's socket.

And don't think that they are afraid of attacking something bigger. At one time when my father was flying near the coast, spraying forest, they had to stop because a couple of sea eagles (Swedish havsörn, http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havsörn ) started behaving aggressively towards the aircraft. OK, single engine prop agricultural aircraft are not big by aircraft standards, but they are much bigger than a 2.5 m wingspan bird.

[Latiam]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

I misread this as being about flying dogs. D'oh!

Snoopy vs the Red Baron?

Originally Posted by Troberg

OK, single engine prop agricultural aircraft are not big by aircraft standards, but they are much bigger than a 2.5 m wingspan bird.

2.5 m wingspan! Yea, I could see how a collision with something that big in such a small plane could get 'interesting'.

[Horse Chestnut]

Our local Schiller park is chock-a-block with small teacup dogs, many of them playing off-leash in a big open area.

Schiller park is also home to a mated pair of Cooper's hawks.

I've always figured it would just be a matter of time. I just hope I'm not there to see it when it happens.

[Lgreywolf]

FOAF story.


A man we once knew who walked his dog at the same park we walked ours told us about a time he was walking in another woods/field area, and came upon a woman who was crying inconsolably. Upon trying to help this woman, he was told that she had just let her toy poodle off the leash to run around when a red-tailed hawk swooped down and carried it off.

I had seen some red-tails circling fairly close by when there were two toy fox terriers playing in the park, but they never made an attempt when I was there.

I remember we were concerned, when my grandmother's cat went missing, that a great horned owl that had been seen in the tree out front had taken him. While his brother (my male cat) is too heavy for most birds of prey, Grandma's cat was smaller and leaner, so it seemed possible. Cat came back after two weeks missing, just when Grandma was ready to get rid of his litter box and bowls.

[DawnStorm]

Dr. Laura used to call cats 'coyote bait' much to the ire of many of her listeners. However where she lived, they were. Haven't listened to her in years, but whenever someone mentioned cats, she'd say 'oh coyote bait'.

[snapdragonfly]

Hawks and such can and do carry off cats all the time. And chickens. And small dogs.

A couple weeks ago, one sleepy sunday afternoon the hubby and I were lazing in the living room and I was looking out the window when lo and behold, out of no where a red tailed hawk swooped down and landed right across the street in our neighbors yard...and just sat there a long long time, it was wild because you generally don't see them just sitting in a yard like that. There are lots of them around here, once I stopped counting at 30 in between here and Mt. Pleasant, only one hour away. But they are always up on poles or rather far away.

It just sat there a long long time (those things are BIG) and after a while my husband opened the front door and it flew off and we could see it had a really big squirrel in it's claws.

I would be very traumatized if one grabbed my cat. They usually aren't in our neighborhood like that, with all our big trees, they usually are out in open fields. But they do come here sometimes.

We had a large pond in our yard, and have lost four ducks to owls. We couldn't figure out what was getting them - we thought perhaps foxes - until one frigid night we heard a commotion, and the next morning the drake's head was in the center of the frozen pond, with blood and feathers everywhere. There were "bump marks" in the snow where the owl's wings had touched down - about three feet apart! We no longer keep ducks.

We've also lost a number of cats to various birds of prey. All our cats are now indoor animals!

My husband was once buzzed by a turkey buzzard while he was mowing the lawn. The bird flew at him several times, but fortunately didn't use that breed's primary means of attack, which is to regurgitate all over the victim. Talk about your "yetch factor"! It turned out hubby was mowing too close to a very large, very dead fish, and apparently the buzzard didn't want his lunch disturbed. My husband promptly "buzzed off", so to speak.

[Broken Sword]

Originally Posted by Lancastrian

I don't think this is going to be a problem for all but the smallest cats and dogs. Raptors can only carry off so much weight at a time.

It's true that they can't carry off a whole lot...but that doesn't mean they can't kill it.



(admittedly, an extreme example)

[Broken Sword]

Originally Posted by Preacher's Kid

My husband was once buzzed by a turkey buzzard while he was mowing the lawn. The bird flew at him several times, but fortunately didn't use that breed's primary means of attack, which is to regurgitate all over the victim. Talk about your "yetch factor"! It turned out hubby was mowing too close to a very large, very dead fish, and apparently the buzzard didn't want his lunch disturbed. My husband promptly "buzzed off", so to speak.

To be technical, it's a means of defense, not attack.

I have never heard of this happening in what I'm going to call "real life". I've heard of it happening to a million "friends of friends" or to people on the internet, but never has anyone I could believe told me that it's happened. Some small dogs are barely larger than big rats, so if your 1/2 pound mousadoodle is out by itself I would bet that a bird of prey would attack it and never even know it ate a dog, but most of these birds are timid and I would bet that they would avoid attacking something that is walking beside a human 99.9 times out of 100, even if that something is the size of a rodent.

[StillandSilent]

One of my fathers co-workers had some sort of bird of prey swoop down and grab his 6 week old "teacup" Chihuahua puppy. Flew off with it right in front of him and the kids. I would believe it, I can't believe that a Chihuahua that small would weigh any more than a 1/2 pound or so.
Two days after he brought it home too. Ouch.