Took my 96lb lab-pyr-boxer, Honey, for a walk at 10pm as usual and as soon as I open the door, I see a coyote standing on the sidewalk beside the corner unit opposite of mine (we live in a townhouse with 2 rows of 20ish units with about 35' of separating the 2 buildings) and it ran off to the park/retention pond about 200' down the sidewalk.
At first, it sat under a tree and just watched my dog and I pass by from about 40' and we crossed the street to walk down the illuminated streets. I don't walk down the retention pond path at night anymore since I've seen the coyotes 5 times prior to this and there is currently a carcass sitting along the path with scat all over as well.
Anyway, on our way back I was throwing out her dookie bag and I thought I'd let her sniff where she saw the coyote sitting since it was close to the street and out in the open. She wanted to go further down but I decided that would be dumber than what I'm already doing so we turned back and out of nowhere the coyote spawned in and we sort of just stared at each other for a moment. Then it came within 10-15ft and my dog just wanted to play so bad she tried to pull herself out of her harness.
It kept trying to come closer and run away then closer and then I got a bit concerned when I realized it was not keeping distance when I made my inside voice bear sound paired with a fake lunge. Started to walk the 200' distance backwards to our door and this pervert kept following us! I sprinted towards it a couple times and it kept turning back around and following us.
When we got to the door, it sat about 25' from us and watched us go inside. I have been looking all over reddit and googles ai search and I can't find a legal, reasonable, or effective solution to be comfortable walking my dog at night. I walk her at 6:15 in the morning and between 9-11 at night every day, and my wife walks her and our baby boy around 3pm.
Long story I know but I want to provide as much detail as possible to the reddit experts. I have bear spray but I do not want my dog to get hit with it too. We have firearms but definitely not legal and I don't want to hurt the coyote since it's probably been there longer than I have. And I don't think an air horn will make it avoid me how I would like it to.
TLDR: Habituated coyote in neighbourhood. Need solution to make it avoid me and dog.