SULLIVAN’S ISLAND — A coyote walking into a home goods store sounds like the start of a bad joke.

But for three women on Sullivan’s Island, the story was their unexpected reality when a coyote indeed strolled straight into A Maker’s Post the afternoon of May 19 — and it was all caught on video.

The store’s front door was propped open that day (as many island businesses do on warm weather days) to invite customers to come in and peruse the displays of art and home decor.

Amanda Woodward, a representative for a local wine and beverage wholesale company called Advintage Distributing, was at the shop that afternoon on a sales call. She chatted with store manager Vaughn Connolly and another employee, Ashlynn Moseley, when the coyote entered the shop.

The security cameras captured his entrance and what came next.

Woodward was the first to notice the coyote trot into the store. Mistaking it for a dog, she greeted the animal as if it were someone’s “cute” pet.

“I really, wholeheartedly just thought it was a dog,” Woodward told The Post and Courier.

Her tone quickly changed once she realized what the animal actually was.

“A coyote!” Woodward yells, her shriek captured on video.

A coyote walks into A Maker’s Post on Sullivan’s Island on May 19, 2026.

Provided/Ashlynn Moseley

The animal then made a beeline for the counter, where the trio of women were gathered. They yelled as they bolted to the back of the store and ran outside, the coyote slipping around and onto the countertop. It then lost its balance, knocking over Moseley’s water bottle in the process.

“I think we scared it just as much as it scared us,” she said.

The women, once outside, locked the back door. Connolly, in a quick-thinking maneuver, circled to the entrance and then bolted the store’s front door as well, trapping the coyote inside.

While the women caught their breath trying to make sense of the bizarre encounter, the coyote made itself at home. Connolly said it curled up in a large pot in the back of the store and didn’t stir until wildlife trappers showed up roughly two hours later to collect the animal. It was likely euthanized as state law prohibits trapped coyotes from being relocated or translocated.