Ms. Wiley The Coyote

The following story about a coyote was submitted by All Things Wild Rehabilitation in Texas.

The young, female coyote was hunting for food in the woods one night when she stepped on a trap that caught her left, front foot. We don’t know how long she was caught there. At some point, she managed to break the tether that held the trap and drag herself away with the foot still in the trap.

In March, some kind homeowners noticed her dragging her trapped foot as she tried to find food and survive. The homeowners contacted a local nonprofit that specializes in trapping stray and lost pets. Eventually, the group was able to trap the coyote and brought her to All Things Wild Rehabilitation. They had named her Ms. Wiley after the Looney Tunes cartoon character Wile E. Coyote.

Once at our wildlife rehabilitation center, we provided pain relief to Ms. Wiley. She was anesthetized, and the trap was removed. The trap had been on the coyote’s foot for too long cutting off the blood supply. The foot had to be amputated. The amputation surgery took three hours but was successful.

Ms. Wiley recovered at All Things Wild on a diet of EmerAid IC Carnivore, which is nutritious and easy for her to digest. After the surgery, Ms. Wiley was treated for mange and spent two weeks in quarantine to ensure that she was disease free. She was then vaccinated for distemper and rabies and placed in an outside enclosure where she could move around.

The dangling, footless leg became a liability, because she kept bumping it into everything. Our veterinarian made the decision to remove the entire leg. Again, following surgery, Ms. Wiley recovered on EmerAid IC Carnivore.

The staff was very happy with her post-op outlook and were able to get close to her to clean her cage. Even though she was still nervous and leery of humans, she never lunged, growled, or tried to attack.

Once the amputation site healed, Ms. Wiley was transferred to a large sanctuary at Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Kendalia, Texas. She continued to become strong and healthy on three legs.

We were happy to learn that Ms. Wiley was released in mid-September with four other coyotes to a protected wildlife site.