Not sure where else to put this, but I typed it up in a skype chat with a friend on the East coast & figured y'all might get a kick out of it.
Every morning my wife & I get up around 6 & take our dog Kenai out for a 2.8 mile walk. Kenai is a Lab/Pit mix, almost 1 yr old & a bit over 60lbs - a large dog but not XL. Our daily route goes around some very large fields that are as yet undeveloped. On one stretch there's a road that is closed off, so no cars, and we let Kenai off leash to run around. We often see big jackrabbits & sometimes Kenai chases them. Last Friday when he was off leash, but standing not far from us, we suddenly saw what looked like another dog come running up to him & they started tussling. After a split second I realized that it was, in fact, a coyote!
Kenai was actually a bit bigger than the coyote & I think Kenai believed he was playing. But after a couple more seconds it seems the coyote thought they were fighting, and the tussle quickly turned into a chase, with Kenai chasing the coyote over a rise & far away out of sight. The whole encounter took less than 15 seconds before they both disappeared. We had no choice but to keep walking in the direction they had gone, and began to get pretty worried, less that the coyote would really hurt Kenai, but that he might get lost and/or traumatized. Fortunately about 5 minutes later Kenai came trotting back to me, as if nothing had happened. Other than being out of breath he was perfectly okay, and has not shown any after effects since.