Canadian driver thinks he put an injured dog in his back seat; it was a coyote
- A 68-year-old driver hit an animal he thought was a dog, and racked with guilt he placed it in his car
- Later he learned that his passenger was not a beloved household pet but a young female coyote
Eli Boroditsky was certain he had hit someone’s large, fluffy dog.
The Manitoba, Canada, resident was on his way to work last week when a flash of grey-brown fur suddenly materialised in front of his headlights. It was around 9.30pm on November 27 – Boroditsky works the overnight shift at a cheese factory – and he did not see the animal until it darted across the rural road. By then, it was too late to avoid a collision.
Racked with guilt, the 68-year-old pulled over. He had been driving about 55 miles per hour (89 kilometres per hour), and he found the bushy-tailed creature alive but unconscious on the shoulder of the road. Boroditsky scooped it up and placed it in the back seat of his Hyundai.
Only later did he learn that his passenger was not a beloved household pet but a young female coyote – a mix-up that could have ended extremely badly.
I thought it was a German shepherd or a husky
“Wild animals are not docile, especially when they’re scared,” said Zoé Nakata, the executive director of Manitoba’s Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre. “So we’re very lucky that everyone was safe.”
Boroditsky told the Winnipeg Free Press that he worried a wild animal would kill the injured creature if he left it alone on the roadside. When he arrived at work on November 27, he told a colleague, who went out to his car, then immediately came rushing back to tell him that the “dog” calmly splayed out was no cuddly family pet.