Coyote Attack Spurs a Neighborly Warning : Wildlife: Young victim and her parents hand out advice on discouraging the animals.

Carrying a stack of yellow flyers, 3-year-old Jennifer Dimmick joined her parents Thursday in a door-to-door campaign to alert neighbors about the dangers of coyotes living in nearby brushland.

Jennifer was attacked by a coyote Monday night several yards from the family’s driveway, as her mother stood nearby. The girl was bitten on the face, head and leg.

Since then, Debbie and David Dimmick have launched a neighborhood awareness effort, urging residents to avoid leaving out ripened fruits, pet foods or trash in open containers that might attract coyotes.

“We know that they’ll never leave and we’re going to have to deal with them,” Debbie Dimmick said. “But at least we can make it so that they won’t feel comfortable coming this close to our community. We can try to scare them off.”

Her husband has been out every night this week with a flashlight and a baseball bat trying to track down where coyotes are living and how close they are to the family’s Sparrow Drive residence.

Debbie Dimmick is talking to neighbors about the dangers of the natural brushland near their home, which can be hiding places for the wild dogs.

The attack, which authorities consider rare, prompted neighbors to organize an emergency meeting this weekend to address the dangers of coyotes, which have been seen at a golf course nearby and walking on Rolling Hills Drive, a street several blocks from the Dimmick home.

“Obviously, we’re all very concerned about the shrubbery, it’s an invitation to the coyotes,” said neighbor Diane Remlinger, whose husband, Ron, witnessed the attack and helped carry Jennifer to safety.

“I have two small children myself and I want to make the area more safe for children and for people in general.”

About 7 p.m. Monday, Jennifer was walking home with friends from a neighborhood pool when a coyote leaped out from a bush and attacked the girl, ripping her swimsuit and biting her just steps away from the family’s driveway. She was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, where she received three stitches on her face and three staples at the nape of her neck. Jennifer is also undergoing a 28-day rabies treatment, her parents said.

“[The coyote] was waiting there for her,” Debbie Dimmick said. “You could see where it was lying there in the dirt and where it had dug its feet in.”

The girl’s mother said she was standing in the driveway when she looked over to see her daughter running from what she had thought was “a dog or a cat.” The mother and Ron Remlinger ran to the girl and brought her inside the house, where Jennifer told them that she had been bitten by a coyote.

“I screamed and I cried,” Jennifer said Thursday.

Since the attack, Jennifer has appeared on television with her parents to “get the word out” and helped pass out about 80 flyers to neighbors. The leaflets urged residents to take precautions.

Monday’s attack happened on trash night, Debbie Dimmick said, and that might have attracted the coyote.

Orange County animal control workers also responded by canvassing the neighborhood and warning residents, said Judy Maitlen, the agency’s director.

Maitlen offered suggestions such as trimming brush and dense weeds near residences where wild animals can hide and making a lot of noise or squirting water if confronted by a coyote.

Animal control workers said Thursday that they have no plans to trap the coyote that bit Jennifer.

Neighbors said they will consider asking the state Department of Fish and Game to remove shrubs from the area. Under an agreement between the managers of the subdivision and the state agency, indigenous plants in the area are not supposed to be uprooted.

“I think a child’s life is much more important than shrubbery,” Debbie Dimmick said.

Although coyotes make their homes in some areas of Orange County, attacks on humans are rare, authorities said. In the past six years, Maitlen recalled only one other incident in which a child was bitten by a coyote. The child was not seriously injured, she said.

“The child had a sandwich and the coyote was trying to take it away,” Maitlen said.

Coyotes travel in packs and usually will hunt for food in the evening and early morning hours. In the eyes of a coyote, a small child falls into the same category as house cats or dogs, which are often attacked, Maitlen said.

“We just have to remember that some of the areas we live in is also where wild animals live,” she said. “We have to expect to find evidence of that and take precautions.”