(CNN) Every day for a week, the strange, happy visitor would drop to play with her Great Pyrenees. She thought Ruth Bader, the dog, had made a new dog companion. Nope, it was a coyote. And the animal was on the lam.

Researchers with the Atlanta Coyote Project told Vanessa Prior, Ruth Bader's human, that they had been trying to track down the rare, black coyote for over a month. It had been spotted around the Smyrna and Vinings, Georgia, areas playing with neighborhood dogs.

"It was very friendly," co-founder of the Atlanta Coyote Project Christopher Mowry told CNN. "It was following people to try to play with their dogs while they were walking them."

The group, which is made up of scientists devoted to learning more about coyotes living in the Atlanta area, first attempted to find the animal when people started to get a little freaked out by it coming too close for comfort.

They figured it was best for everyone -- people, dogs, coyote -- to move the animal to a safer place.

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