I live in a mostly wooded part of rural Maryland in between DC and the coast. Being November, there are tons of dry leaves on the ground, particularly just outside my front and back yards in the woods.

The past few weeks, when walking outside my house in the dark at night or very early morning (to take out the trash, etc.) I've been hearing what sounds like a large animal in the woods walking slowly and disturbing the leaves.

Tonight, I took a flashlight with me and shined it into the woods along the edge of my back yard and saw a pair of BIG yellow eyes shining back at me... low to the ground, blinking very slowly. When using my incandescent light, the eyes were rich gold. Switching to my white LED light, the eyes were more of a lemon yellow.

The animal was about 50 feet away. I yelled and it did not seem to care. I went in the house and came back out with .22 rifle and it was still there staring at me so I fired a warning shot to it to try and scare it off. The ***************** didn't even flinch. It just slowly sidestepped about four feet to the side, keeping its eyes on me the whole time.

I fired another shot - this time it turned around and walked away. From what I saw and the way it moved, it was a four-legged animal, about 30-40 pounds. Somewhat dark color, but the butt seemed to be lighter.

Does this sound like a coyote? Bobcat? It's been stalking around my house for a few weeks now so I'm worried about my pets. I have a cat and a young dog. I don't want to see my puppy get snatched away in front of me while I'm taking him outside to pee. I also don't want to get jumped by a cougar while I'm taking out the trash. Should I set up some snares at the edge of the property? This is really creepy because whatever the animal is, it has some serious balls and isn't afraid of me.