Ravinder Malhi was walking her eight-year-old miniature pinscher, Coco, at around 11 a.m. on Monday near her Bellcroft Lane home when she suddenly found herself staring at a coyote.
Malhi said she scooped up Coco and started screaming for help while simultaneously grabbing handfuls of snow off the ground and chucking it at the animal. The animal stepped back slightly but started growling, she said.
“I was terrified. I was thinking, ‘I’m done for today.’ There was nobody, not a single human being and I’m with my little puppy with a coyote right in front of me,” Malhi told CTV News Toronto.
“I’m otherwise a very strong person but in that moment I was terrified.”
Suddenly, Malhi said she noticed someone else was screaming along with her.
Muriah Umoquit was working from her Silverdale Road home that day when she heard a commotion happening outside on her front lawn.
Umoquit said peaked out her front window to see what was going on. She said she decided to grab a snow shovel before venturing out to investigate further.
“I saw someone throwing snow and I thought, ‘That’s a weird scream for a snowball fight.’ I kind of ignored it (at first) because I thought someone was just playing, but when I looked again I saw the woman was throwing snow at a coyote,” Umoquit said.
As soon as she caught a glimpse of the coyote lunging at Malhi and Coco, Umoquit barreled out her front door and started making as much noise as she could.
Her attempts to scare off the animal were captured on her home security system. The video shows Umoquit slamming the snow shovel up against the side of her porch fence repeatedly while shouting.
In the video, Umoquit can be heard yelling for Malhi to grab her dog and take shelter in her home. But,as Malhi makes a run for the porch, she trips and falls in the snow, dropping Coco in the process.
Despite the banging by Umoquit, the coyote took the opportunity to make one last lunge at Coco.
Eventually Malhi was able to snatch Coco back up and make it safely inside.
“I’m blessed to have a neighbour like that,” Malhi said, referring to Umoquit. “I wouldn’t even know what I would’ve done without her. Seriously, it was just like an angel in my life at that moment.”
with files from CTV News