I really don't want to derail this thread, but my curiosity is killing me.
I'm not sure I've ever heard someone refer to a coyote as a "dangerous critter". I am legitimately more scared of being bitten by a rabid squirrel than I would be of a coyote attack (I've spent plenty of time around both critters). In the US and Canada combined, there are often as few as 10 attacks per year by coyote on human, and I bet 99% of those are when the human is trying to grab their pet cat out of the coyote's mouth. Compare that to 4,500,000 attacks per year by dogs... Long story short, if you run across a coyote in the woods, feel free to snuggle up next to them for the night; they are the least dangerous thing out there. You have a better chance of being killed by ants. You are r0 times more likely to have a tree fall on you than you are a coyote bite. Coyotes are safer than trees.
The Eastern Coyote of northern New England and eastern Canada is not the same canine as the little critters common throughout the western states. All of the coyotes I've seen in AZ, CO, ID, WY, and MT during travel for work, back country X-C skiing, mountaineering and hunting trips were maybe 25-30 pounds or so, and quite shy.
The one experience I had with feral dogs on the prarrie in CO convinced me that wild dogs were very dangerous, and quite a contrast from the coyotes I frequently encountered there. Fortunately I was armed at the time, albeit with only a S&W M18.
The Eastern Coyote is a coyote-wolf (with maybe some dog genes thrown in) hybrid. They are usually the size of a big border collie, upwards of 50-60 pounds. They came about as the wolves were almost extinct in the northeast US and Maritime Canada about the time of WWI. The first couple I saw out in the blueberry barrens here in Maine looked like somebody's German Shepard dog.
Coyotes drifted east to exploit the predator vacuum as the wolf population faded in the early 20th century. Normally natural enemies, the wolves became so desperate for mates that the "any port in a storm" imperative altered traditional mating preferences and racial bigotry.
The result is an aggressive, small wolf. Unlike the timber wolf, it can live closely with humans, lacks the shyness of the little western coyotes, and retains the cunning of all coyotes.
A pack killed a 19 year-old woman who was hiking in Algonquin National Park in New Brunswick, Canada a decade or so ago, IIRC. A pack ambushed a neighbor's husky when she let him out for his last time before bed one night. She grabbed a Ruger 9mm and expended a 15-round magazine driving the pack off her dog, and when she went out into the blueberry field to retreive her dog, the pack closed in on her. She reloaded and emptied a second magazine. I heard the panic fire shooting, and went outside to listen to figure out what was happening. I concluded it was fireworks, not uncommon in this rural town at night in summer. Silly me. I don't think she hit much in the dark, but the noise worked, I guess. When I finally heard the tale from my neighbor, she said her porch light provided enough light for her to see many sets of canine eyes reflecting from it in the furball, so she shot at all of the ones closest to the ground, as her dog was pretty big.
Unless I'm deer hunting, I am always accompanied afield by my gun dog, an English Springer, who is small enough at 38 pounds to be at a disadvantage against a single coyote, let alone a pack. We've been out at dusk and heard coyotes calling around, us and I worry more about protecting him than me. A K- frame .357 Smith is an outstanding choice. So is a 38 Super or hi-cap 9.
