I know that some of the ODFW guys up in the Mt Emily unit here in La Grande are running some research projects on the number of cats in that unit and are using dogs to track kill sights and to collect scat to help figure out exactly what they are eating and all of that.  I live in an area out here where it is not that uncommon to have wild life walking down the street in front of my house at times it cuts through my yard though as the dogs have been out more that gets less common. 

In general I worry less about coyotes than I do the cats.  Another factor that most people seem to forget is dogs that have gone wild will kill more than their share of both live stock or deer.  Normally a dog that has gone wild will kill not only for food or protection but some will actually kill just for the "fun" of it.  Back when I was a kid and working on the ranch I never had problems with wild animals taking the livestock as we had guardian dogs.  However we did have to worry about dogs that had gone wild because they did not have the same fears as their wild counter parts.  I actually shot several dogs while working there, one unfortunately had killed close to 10 sheep before I got to it, he did not feed on any of them just kept killing.