Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, and not all of them are exactly cute and cuddly. We may see the panting, barking, household type more than anything.

What about the ones that aren’t so at home in the suburbs or houses? The ones that prefer to howl, hunt in packs, and roam the wild.

Canidae, the dog family, has got more than just domestic dogs and wolves.

Some of the biggest character comes in a small package.

Some of the dog family’s less star-status members are the Dholes, Bush dogs, foxes, raccoon dogs, jackals, and of course, the coyote.

Coyotes deserve some special mention here. As far as the dog family’s wild members go, they’re among the ones that aren’t so afraid of people.

This poses a lot of problems.

And this ten-year-old girl and her Yorkie learned that the hard way.

Lily Kwan, a ten-year-old resident of Toronto, had the encounter of a lifetime when a coyote went after her and her dog.

The odds weren’t in their favor at all, since Lily’s dog was a tiny Yorkie mix named Macy.

These suburban parts of Toronto can have some unexpected tourists from time to time.

Macy makes up in bravery what she lacks in size.

Coyotes in the neighborhood.

Just a few days before, ten-year-old Lily saw flyers in the neighborhood warning of Coyote sightings.

Coyotes may not be wolves, but that doesn’t mean you should underestimate them. Even at 44 pounds, these canids have gnarly bites and the tenacity to go with it.

A single Coyote may not pose much of a threat to an adult person, but it very well does to a ten-year-old girl.

In 2009, a pair of Coyotes were responsible for the death of 19-year-old singer Taylor Mitchell. Lone coyotes are known to be deadly to small children already.

So it seems like these animals can easily pick off a child, and go for adults with just a bit of backup.

But things don’t always go as planned.

This footage shows the moment Lily was chased by the coyote. The ten-year-old screams and panics as she runs with Macy.

The Yorkie mix is unable to keep up with Lily.

Her tiny legs just can’t carry her as fast.

In a panic, Lily lets go of the leash and runs off by herself.

She left the dog behind, but we can’t blame a child for how they’d react in life or death situations, can we?

Lily ran off screaming for help. She knocked frantically on the neighbor’s doors until one let her in.

Meanwhile, Macy is left to fend for her own. Her adversary a wild, hungry carnivore that only sees her as food.

Macy had two options.

She could just try to keep running and hope the coyote couldn’t catch up to either of them, or she could do whatever was in her power to fight the coyote off.

Despite the one-sided nature of things, Macy put up a fight.

Without any backup, Macy snapped.

She let this coyote know she wasn’t going down without a fight. Well, thankfully she didn’t go down. The coyote was tenacious, but so was Macy. She survived but not unscathed.

With severe puncture wounds all over her little body, Macy was rushed to the ICU. She’ll recover, but it’ll take lots of time and funds.

Lily’s mother later spoke of how the coyote’s fearlessness in human settlements caught everyone off-guard.

“I would never guess that a coyote, you know, would come out during the day, and especially with someone screaming and yelling it still was not fazed; it just kept coming after her and our dog, you know, despite all the yelling.” – Dorothy Kwan said to ABC 7

Lily’s running and screaming likely triggered the coyote’s urge to chase and kill. To be fair, I don’t think “Try to intimidate it” is an option for a ten-year-old girl and a tiny Yorkie mix.

Still, Macy was quite fearless and very lucky. This all shows us what a wild animal can do, even a small one. We just depend on our towns and walls to keep us safe.

Watch how it all played out in the video below.

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Source: ABC 7 on YouTube, CNN, Coyote on Wikipedia, ABC7.com