Foxes usually don’t bother cats. Coyotes will kill foxes and kill cats. I would consider getting a donkey or a livestock protection dog, as long as you are well set up for their safety. Alternatively, I would keep the cats inside. When we lived in Virginia, coyotes killed all of the neighborhood outdoor cats and at least several foxes.
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Another vote for foxes leaving cats alone. This is courting season for foxes, you may see and hear them as they pass thru and vocalize. Enjoy seeing the fox, the coyotes are the real threat.
That said, I just had an interesting fox encounter walking the dog. Our house is in a sprawling wooded neighborhood that shares a border with a state park, with lots of lovely wildlife strolling through. Lately we have been hearing a red fox, and catching occasional glimpses during the pre-dawn dog walk. Fox usually gives a glance and continues on its way. Because of the assorted 4 legged beasties, along with hawks, owls and eagles; older kitty is only allowed out in busy daylight hours. Fortunately we have no coyotes as of yet.
Dog and I have finished our after dinner walk and are heading home. She perks up just before the house and I shine the light to see what caught her interest. Nothing sighted until I see Eric kitty peeking at us at the end of the driveway. I put the dog away and go back for the cat. I glance up to see a fox just to the right of the driveway, it is trotting in a relaxed way towards the tree where Eric kitty is lurking. Conscious of the fact that while Eric considers himself the “adventure kitty”, he is really just a skinny senior citizen, I say “hey fox what are you doing!” Sir fox takes one look at me and dashes up the hill. Eric the red cat is scooped up and taken inside and DH agrees that if the truant slips out between his feet, a search party is in order.
The fox had not noticed me, and was moving forward in a non hunting or stalking posture, more curious. Our neighborhood fox looks healthy and in good flesh, with plenty of mice, rabbits and other small game available. In the last few months a red fox has been making 3-4am passes by our hunt’s foxhound kennel. Of course the hounds all come out of the lodging rooms and into the yard to bark at the fox, who is absolutely unimpressed. Although it wakes him up at night every time, the huntsman is amused.
the foxes never bother our cats either, but the coyotes displaced the foxes
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Thanks for all the responses!
I don’t think I’m cut out for a LGD and I don’t think we have enough of a ‘flock’ for one to guard.
I was thinking more of a GSD cross and it was helpful to hear about how the wildlife reacts to posters with similar dogs.
I have wondered about the donkey idea! But would they be effective cat protection across 30 ac if they were limited to the horse pastures (10ac)? And our horse pastures stay lush enough through rotation/maintenance that my horses are on the drylot half the time since they get too fat!
I think I need more ‘data’ - I have seen the Fox twice in the last month, once at dusk, once mid-morning. He looked healthy and seemed to be poking around for mice. Based on his tracks in fresh snow he’s around almost daily and close to the barn and house. Maybe time for a game cam.
Still undecided on the concept of a new dog just for the sake of having a dog. The loss of the last team (of ripe old age after a full lifetime of adventures) was so heartbreaking. I still feel saturated by the experience that I don’t have an insatiable need for another dog.
Great picture! Kitty looks completely in charge, fox looks like she(? small enough to be a vixen) is not sure how the encounter will go.
Coyotes and fox are smart. They’ll just come at night if they’re determined.
We have a trail camera set up a few hundred feet behind the house. We regularly get pictures of coyotes, only one fox in the last few years, lots of raccoons, turkeys, and deer. One bear, and one moose last summer.
We hear the coyotes all the time.
In the winter with the snow it’s easy to see where they travel. They regularly travel through our open yard at night. There are two that do a very predictable loop at night down the trail that I walk the dog on.
All of that happens even with having a 75lb Aussie x Bernese on the property. But she sleeps in the house at night.
Knock on wood even though they’re around they’ve never bothered my chickens. I attribute that to the Fort Knox coop/run that they live in though, not to the dog. They only get to free range when I’m home. I worry more about birds of prey.
I always thought that my Bouvs would keep the coyotes away. I have lost cats over the years but never knew for sure what happened to them.
Unfortunately last summer there was proof that a coyote got one of my latest rescues, a small one year old. It happened during the night. The dog is in the house but by morning there were large muddy footprints on the diving board, the large planter beside it was knocked over and there was some coyote fur on the ground. I think the kitty tried to make it under the deck as there is a small opening there.
I used to walk my dogs in the back 40 and in the bush. Sometimes we would run into coyote and my dog Winston would go after them. One time the coyote followed us all the way home about 50 feet behind us.
I now only have one dog and will only take him on the leash which isn’t much fun as he is a very strong, enthusiastic dog. My arms get sore. I installed a large run for him.
We have 2 big dogs and 2 smaller dogs( 30-35 pounds) on the farm. We hear a lot of coyotes all around but I have never seen 1 close to the house or barns. I raise Boer goats and so far in 14 years of doing that I have never lost 1 to any predator.
My dogs are out during the day but sleep inside at night. They have basically erased the rabbits and foxes from around the house/ barns and while we still have squirrels they are getting scarce.
If you get a breed that was specifically bred to guard livestock you will have better success and they will be happier if they have livestock to guard. My neighbors were drawn to the LGD breeds but since they had no job to do they would roam for miles.
Farmers/ ranchers here shoot dogs that won’t stay home as they tend to develop a pack mentality given the right circumstances.
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We had a 265 lbs english mastiff. Nothing came around when he was alive even though he was the gentlest of souls & english mastiff aren’t a LGD breed. They’re very hard to find in the US, but Spanish mastiffs are LGDs. And differ from most of the more common LGD breeds in that they enjoy human company & will happily play family dog by day, Hound of the Baskervilles at night. Sheep ranchers in the high Sierra will run a few Spanish Mastiffs as they are dealing with large predators like cougars & wolves. They are so large that they are fine alone in most situations with smaller predators. Are you open to more non-traditional means? When we had hogs & longhorn cattle free ranging was the only time I saw nothing. No foxes, no coyote, not even a racoon. With the longhorn I wasn’t surprised, they’re scrappy when they need to be. But the pigs? Oh, my. Once heard a commotion in the middle of the night. The next morning, I found a few tufts of greyish fur. They’d chased down a canidae of some kind & ripped it to shreds.
Controversial opinion alert: Having raised poultry on a much larger than most people & dealing with the constant economic loss & heartbreak from predation, I shoot coyote on sight & don’t lose any sleep. Foxes, I’m very selective about. Coyote are nasty SOB that have gotten so bad at the northern end of the county that they’re regularly grabbing calves now. Yes, I’ve heard the protestations that if you shoot one, two more move in. Keep shooting them & eventually they’ll run out. That’s what happened to the Eastern Puma. Ironically, the coyote problem here in VA arose mainly from the eradication of the Eastern Puma.
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We have a pack of australian shepherds, and although the coyotes will move through the farm they don’t stop to see if there are pickings from the hen house. I attribute that to having my “border patrol Aussies” 
The foxes we have get chased by the dogs, but still manage to have a litter of kits every spring, which is delightful when the kits are old enough to wander out and play…cuteness overload.
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Refreshing because I’m thinking more about a donkey.
It was mentioned that Donkey dislike all canids, but how do they react in general to roaming house cats?
The local coyotes laugh at my neighbor’s german shepherds. Her dogs are barking and carrying on like they’re going to rip something apart and the coyotes could care less. They just keep on singing. I havenoticed that whenever the llamas are around or the pigs we have no coyotes. I don’t recommend pigs (lol) but llamas or donkeys might be good. Plus, they are cute.
We have both coyotes and kit foxes where I live. The little kit foxes are very cute. I sometimes see them late at night when I get home. There’s also nothing like coming down the driveway and having the headlights sweep over the adjoining pasture and seeing lots and lots of glittery little eyes - coyotes - I’ve interrupted a jamboree.
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I really can’t speak for donkeys, exactly, but I knew a Belgian cross once that would kill any cat that came into his paddock. I hated that horse. He meant to do it, too; he knew what he was doing. But he’s the only horse I ever knew who was like that. My Pinto/Arab cross will chase them, but it’s not mean-spirited, just a 'hey, what are you? Come back!" thing.
Having lived on a farm all my life, I’ve had outside dogs for most of that time. I lost my last one two years ago, and haven’t replaced him. I haven’t noticed any difference in the level of coyote activity since he’s been gone. I think the key is: how much prey is there for the coyotes? If there’s plenty of other prey, they won’t come near a house if they don’t have to. We have rabbits, deer, mice, rats, the neighbor’s free-range chickens, etc. so they seem to be pretty happy staying in the woods.
My barn cats stay in large crates at night in the barn (like this one: https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/you-and-me-1-door-folding-dog-crate-48-l-x-30-w-x-32-h-2621450?cm_mmc=PSH--GGL--SPP--PME--PET--AQU--0--PM_GGL_FY21_SBU04_PrivateLabel-You%26Me_LIA-SMRT--0-_-0&gclid=CjwKCAjwjbCDBhAwEiwAiudBy_ZXngmWMt48t6wG8RoTkylYnzjPyRYFL49b0Mr27T2qcEIMdoAtIxoCxf0QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds), but they do sometimes refuse to come in. In the past ten years, I’ve only lost two, and I don’t know what happened to either one; they just didn’t come home in the morning. Was it coyotes, or something else? I’ll never know.
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Our dogs - a Russell terrier and a Mountain cur/Catahoula cross - do not appear to dissuade coyote activity at our place, except within the confines of the fenced yard. And we hear coyotes nightly. One picked up my chicken and trotted off just a few weeks ago at 10 in the morning.
Had the donkeys not been penned for breakfast, they would’ve murdered that coyote. They are hell on canids. I once looked out the window to see the horses grazing, but the donkeys on red alert. A stray Labrador was snaking through the pasture, eyes on the chicken pen. The donkeys waited until he was good and close, then charged and ran that sucker through 20 full acres of pasture before he slipped under the fence and disappeared.
So…I vote for donkeys. Get two - they like their own kind and they are hardy and cheap to feed. (And also hilarious.) Ours have never bothered the cats. Occasionally I’ll see one pin its ears at a cat, and the cat simply scoots along out of the way.
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In my neck of the woods, no.
We have three large breed dogs actively on the farm. Their presence does not at all deter coyotes from visiting. I see them routinely on hacks, and also occasionally catch the younger or freshly displaced ones mousing in our grass field.
Coyotes and foxes won’t avoid your yard/farm simply because there are scent markings or droppings there. They’ll just wait until the dog (and its human) is inside to check the area. If people are noticing a decrease in coyote visitations while they’re outside, just put up a trail cam overnight – you’ll see them come back.
Collecting the cats prior to dusk and keeping them in at night is the safest alternative, in my experience. The foxes are unlikely to present a risk, but coyotes love cats for dinner. 
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I used to think that my Bouvs would keep the coyotes away but unfortunately one of my little cats was killed right by the pool at night. There were dirty prints on the diving board, a larger planter was knocked over and there was a tuft of coyote hair so I knew what happened to the poor kittie.
My two standard donkeys, purchased to deter coyotes, do their job - in the dry lot where they live because the little pudgies can’t be on grass most of the time.
On the bright side maybe your cat will stay up near the dry lot. I bought my donkeys because I was losing ducks and chickens to coyotes. It worked because the coyotes were actually coming through the dry lot to get to the ducks. Warning though, the donkeys maimed a coyote and we had to have a hunter put it out of it’s misery. For some reason I was under the impression the donkeys would just chase the coyotes away.
A large dog that is not out patrolling the area where your cats are will probably not help in the long run. Coyotes are very adaptable and will figure out the dog marking scent is not a threat. Livestock guardian dogs work because they back up their warnings with action.
I have seen (and heard) a fox kill a cat 2 times, both at night. It was horrible. I wouldn’t count on them leaving cats alone, especially if they have a litter to feed.
My dogs are in a fenced-in yard. We often see a fox hunting a few hundred feet away in the horse field and it doesn’t pay attention to the dogs because it knows they can’t chase it. The coyotes frequently pass by close to the house at night but we rarely see them during the day and they seem to spook when the dogs bark. But we have so many coyotes around here that I wouldn’t let any dog out unfenced between dusk and dawn.
As some of you know from other posts I have been looking for a dog since losing mine last year to old age.
Finally a 4 yr old Rody needed a new home because he was chasing the landlords cows. I don’t have cows nor do my neighbors and he had ben used to horses.
He has been here about 3 weeks, a big adjustment for all of us as he is big 95 pounds and pure muscle. Since his arrival the squirrels, rabbits, and unwanted feral cats have all left. The nightly howling of coyotes is over. This new dog is a sweet love in the house but outside he has a serious prey drive and a very deep growl.He is very athletic and easily jumped a 5 foot fence.
So can I prove he has made the coyotes move on , of course not but seems like the local wild animals have spread the word and are now detouring around the farm .
They had moved in after we lost our Rody but seems like words out now.
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