But when she rounded the house and checked the front yard at Oak Glen Avenue about 5:45 a.m. this morning, she saw a coyote carrying her 14-year-old Maltese, Buttons, by her neck. As she shouted, the coyote run up the hill behind the home with the dog in its firm grasp.

"It wasn't having trouble at all," Luttrell said. "It readjusted its grip on her neck, and took off running."

The longtime Morgan Hill resident chased the coyote about 75 feet, clapping her hands and hollering at it until it dropped the dog and ran into the brush.

But that wasn't the end of it - Luttrell said she saw the coyote approaching the property where she works as a caretaker three more times in the next 20 minutes.

"It was really brazen," she said. "It must have been hungry."

Yet the coyote, which Luttrell said was about the size of a Labrador, didn't look thin, and it was certainly strong.

"If it could carry my 14-pound dog, it could carry a child," she said.

Buttons, who Luttrell said can't see or hear well, suffered two puncture wounds around her neck and a laceration to her left eye.

The only reason she was still alive, Luttrell said, was that the coyote carried her by the neck.

Luttrell had seen this coyote before.

She said there have been coyotes in the neighborhood for the past few weeks and she can hear the packs howling at night.

Neighbor Mike Guild said he's seen the lone coyote, too. There are a lot of wild animals in the area, including a couple of packs of wild turkeys and a red fox, along with the coyote.

"Just a week ago it was sitting outside our chicken coup," Guild said. "We've seen it running down the street, into Linda's field. It's part of his territory. There's nothing we can do about it."

Luttrell expects a visit from Vector Control Wednesday morning. Buttons was "very shaken" for a couple of hours, but is fine in the yard - as long as people are around, she said.