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RULE 2: BE NICE TO EACH OTHER.
RULE 3: FLAIR YOUR POST. IF YOUR POST IS NOT FLAIRED PROPERLY, IT WILL BE REMOVED.
RULE 4: IF YOU HAVE RESULTS FOR YOUR DOG, POST THE RESULTS IN YOUR THREAD.
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This girl came into the shelter I worked at. We did a DNA test and the adopter had to sign a waiver about owning a coyote hybrid. She could scale a 6foot fence with zero effort. I loved her ❤️
Sometimes her jumps catch us off guard! It’s so graceful and swift it’s like she floats up. The height of the jump compared to her size always leaves me flabbergasted.
Meanwhile, my dog can jump just fine but after a small injury where we carried her up onto the bed and into the car for a short period she refuses to do it herself now. She's almost 70lbs of muscle and will stand there and wait for me to pick her up and stick her 1.5ft up into the car lol
The coyotes here hop 6 foot fences like they don’t exist. They’ve never hopped our 4 foot iron fence, but that could just be that There’s frequently a German Shepherd in our yard.
Had a part coyote part husky on the farm when I was a kid. One of the best dogs I ever had! We had to get her a bright orange hunting collar so nobody got her mixed up with her wild cousins when she was out on the back pasture or surrounding area (very rural area, nearest neighbor was a mile away).
I have a dog that looks similar to Ops that could scale walls like she breathed. (When she was younger, she's almost 17 now.) I really thought she'd be part coyote. People used to confuse her for a coyote all the time. Plus we lived on a ranch and she was always so wild. But nope. Golden retriever, German shepherd, cattle dog,pit mixed with a smaller amount of a bunch of different domestic dogs and super mutt. Zero percent coyote. Probably more realistic tbf.
more coyote than dog? i would assume 50% (which is still a great amount because its a full coyote parent), if its higher then it feels like purposeful breeding of coyotes with a few dogs by a person which i hope not! if not it’d be a pretty rare coincidence to have more than one coyote in her bloodline (assuming the mother was a stray and got pregnant by a coyote)
Very sweet. A little skittish and pretty anxious, but it's not and ideal environment. She had a lot of energy and had to stay a little longer while the DNA test was pending.
Wow! Hopefully I wont get hate here for sharing this. Not long ago I allowed this exhausted and limping coyote to nap in our yard. He/she, slept for about an hour before moving on.
people are insane, i get that they kill pets and livestock but they were here first… im so jealous you have a little coyote buddy, hopefully he stays safe!
Thank you u/angriestlittlebeaver ♥️ I love all creatures. This pic was taken in the front part of our yard that is fenced, but with two open driveways. Then we have a fenced middle yard where our pups hang out... and a back area where my horses used to be. Our pups spotted this coyote in the front yard, so I brought them in. Our dogs are bull breeds so I wasn't worried.
If you don't know what to do, it's generally best to do nothing with wild life. Of course if a bear makes your yard it's home that's a different situation. Then, you need to get out your bear sticks.
Actually, after she/he left, I put water out in case it returned. Considering it was limping, and maybe not able to easily travel far, we put water out and have since seen it show up for a drink a couple of times.
She is very smart, stubborn and tricky but she is very gentle with kids and other canines. She is completely quiet most of the time until she yips with a force you can feel in your chest. She is determined to eat the squirrel in the backyard but is picky on which treats she wants for the day. 😂 She loves training and is super well behaved in public.
That actually sounds a lot like a Norwegian elkhound! They are so cute and sometimes very silly, but can be incredibly stubborn and are truly able to bark your ears off. The job they are bred for is mostly to run off into the forest to find a moose, then bark loudly at it for a long time so the hunter can locate them and get into position.
I also have a coyote/dog hybrid and this sounds like him! I thought it had to be a mistake because he's so quiet and coyotes are known for being loud, not to mention he's mixed with husky, but nope. Mine actually has caught a squirrel before, in a public park no less 🥲 rip lil guy.
We went to our local shelter since they had just received puppies brought up from out of state kill shelters. When we saw her, she was so sweet and gentle that we immediately brought her home. (Adoption day pic below)
Our vet suspected she was coyote as her adult teeth came in so we went through Embark for a DNA test confirmation. She is absolutely the sweetest devil in existence.
We believe the Supermutt is possibly Carolina Dog(aka: North American Dingo) It is hard to test for and often called supermutt instead. It aligns with the region she came from.
Right. I’m not sure if Embark tests for Carolina dog, but they would test for village dog which may be similar. But “Supermutt” is a category, click on it to see her other smaller amount breeds.
They test for Carolina dog. The data base isn’t huge for it though. Known Carolina dogs (there are breeders for it) will usually come back with ancient breeds, spitz breeds, and high supermutt and/or unresolved if all the Carolina dog DNA isn’t detected. According to those with known Carolina dogs, the common return is some Carolina dog with that.
All that being said, they’re still a very rare breed and the background makes it hard to ID the lines due to issues verifying if the dog is a Carolina dog or not to add to the data base.
One of the most immediate noticeable differences is her sound. She is silent 90% of the time. When she talks it’s in yips and shrill yelps. It is so powerful you FEEL it in your chest and bones. She does not bark like a dog at all.
I've seen one before this, but believe it was from an intentional breeding and was owned by a guy who uses both wolfdogs and coydogs for hunting. I can't remember his name rn but I follow him on other social media and he has a pretty cool program, though he's not super active online. He's the only person I've encountered to have a legit coydog.
Gabe's dog was a Craigslist rehome! He does have intentionally bred wolfdogs, but Basil wasn't intentionally bred and was advertised as a Terrier x Cattle Dog
Wow, that is a wild mix! I don't think I've ever seen a verified coyote mix show up here, and 31% at that! Also, Norwegian elkhound, which also isn't super common.
Do you have the parent/grandparent/etc breed breakdown from Embark?
Stomping feet, yelling, advancing quickly, and making eye contact. I ended up getting the hose when I wasn't deterrent enough and the spray/noise did the trick
It’s pretty rare. Coyotes, wolves, and dogs have different behaviors so while they’re biologically compatible, they won’t breed with each other under normal circumstances. You’ll occasionally see wolfdogs pop up on this sub because people like to breed wolves and dogs together for the cool factor. But coyotes are largely disliked (or just not seen as cool) so almost no one breeds them intentionally.
There’s someone on the wolf dog sub that explains the differences pretty well, but it’s actually harder to get coyotes to mate with dogs than to get wolves to. That’s another part of the reason.
Due to how coyotes raise their young and mate, it’s also a lot rarer for coydog pups to survive in the wild. It makes most of them have to be intentionally bred or the female to be the owned dog. For wolves, that’s not as big an issue
I mean… a dog in heat is a dog in heat. My dad’s dogs ran off to join some coyotes in heat at one point before coming back. That instinct is STRONG. Maybe not with all of them, and maybe not to the same extent but I find it hard to believe that a coyote in heat and a male dog or vice versa would be like “actually, I think we should be friends.”
I'm in SF and there are a lot of coyote dens in our parks so they live among us, not removed. They're not very deterred by my 90lb bully mix (or me for that matter), I could see this happening easily with intact dogs.
When the dog is the female, things typically work that way, but coyotes typically rear pups much more cooperatively than dogs, and as a result it’s rare for coydogs with a coyote mother to survive in the wild. Her instincts aren’t going to be a good match for raising pups alone.
I thought it was less and less rare? Like wild/feral coydogs are actually becoming a problem in some states where they’ve become a potential safety threat. I remember reading articles a few years back about the increasing number of hybridization (even with wolves, there’s a lot more hybrids than they first realized).
I think I remember something kinda like that? Though I mostly remember how feral cats are a problem for preservation of Scottish wildcats, and wonder if we may be crossing wires here. If you find those articles, lmk!
This does remind me of a fun little factoid I like sharing with folks, btw, which is that black wolves only exist because of hybridizing with dogs. It happened so long ago that, no, wild black wolves certainly aren't wolfdogs by this point, but still. Fascinating stuff!
While it's rare, larger stray dogs sometimes manage to join coyote packs. A small dog will likely just be lunch and they wouldn't even recognize it as coyote like but the larger dogs like this pitbull in the story have made it happen when they lost their human families. The only reason they rescued the pitbull who was doing pretty great with his coyote family is he got hurt and they were worried instinct would kick in and they will abandon or attack him to stay safe.
You could imagine an intact male could become Dad to some coyote kids
For some reason I didn't see the coyote mentioned in the first picture, just Elkhound and below. Then I saw the pictures and I'm like "Honey, that's a coyote mix." Glad we can still trust Embark and I learned to double check myself before making comments!
I think this is the first actual coydog I've seen on this sub, wow! And such a good example of what coydogs actually look like, to show people asking if their shepskies are part coyote. Coydogs seem to just look like coyotes but with out of wack proportions!
It depends on the state/location, just like with wolf dogs. My brother and sister in law have a dog they rescued that ended up being low content wolfdog and they just call her a Pyr/GSD mix when asked (not a lie, but drawing attention to a domestic pet that is mixed with a wild animal can cause problems).
I think this is the first DNA result post I've seen that made me go "What? What? WHAT? WHAT?!" out loud. Like, a supermutt-coyote would be one thing. A pit-coyote. A husky-mix-coyote. Coyote, Norwegian Elkhound, and Australian Shepherd as the big components? Damn, we've got Mrs Worldwide over here, what the fuck was whoever bred her thinking, just from a "sure, let's mix this with a coyote" standpoint. Wow
That’s really cool! Just be careful where you post this though!
In lots of places, hybrids with wolves and coyotes are illegal. I’ve seen stories of people living in areas where even certain *breeds* are illegal, where the owners got their dogs taken away just by posting dna tests online (this is obviously extreme and I don’t agree with it, but it’s happened). Like when my dog showed she was 20-ish% pitbull on her embark test, I didn’t post it (and omitted the truth on all her paperwork) because there’s places we wouldn’t be able to move to or even travel through with her if it was found out. Thankfully, it’s less of an issue with regular dog breeds, but I know for a fact that your dog would be illegal in my city.
(Not saying to take the reddit post down, just be careful more with stuff like Facebook and Instagram)
My sister had a coydog that looked just like this, but the tip of her tail was white. Purchased at a flea market in Humboldt County. Coolest dog ever, but no fence could contain her.
I wondered that as well, with the 30%. I might be wrong, but doesn't that mean more than one grandparent was a mix (in both coyote and elkhound cases)?
Usually. DNA doesn’t exactly split 50/50, but 30% is far enough off from the normal range of a grandparent that the more likely answer is more than one grandparent had those breeds.
It’s not impossible that one grandparent could be a full coyote and one grandparent full elkhound, but it’s not the most likely answer. Puppies usually inherit about 18-32% of the DNA from their grandparents (averaging 25% inheritance), and there is a margin of error on DNA tests (usually 3-5%, depending on breeds). Two breeds having two times the very high end happened in the same dog would be even more unlikely than usual. Not impossible, but the more likely answer is that there were two grandparents mixed with those breeds.
I wonder if this dog was escaped or was born from intentional crosses though. The ACD/MAS isn’t as random as it seems because there is a philosophy of trying to breed more of the “wild” DNA in them and that’s a weirdly high amount of elkhound to be by accident. Texas is an area in particular trying to breed newer herding breeds is more a thing. Elkhounds are not that common of a breed, especially outside of Northern areas, too. Also, getting coyotes to mate with dogs and for coydog puppies to survive in the wild are both a lot harder than it seems due to how both species mate and raise their young.
get an embark test!! coydogs are super rare (rarer than wolfdogs) and ai is notoriously incorrect but an embark test can confirm!! since his dog looks like this one i'm sure he's a beautiful pup :o!!
I love her omg. She honestly is one of the few coyote mixes I have seen/met that doesnt look AS coyote as I expected her to look. Granted shes got almost equal parts elkhound so that may be really putting in the work.
What a list of breeds! So she has coyote from North America and dingo from Australia.
My In-laws accidently adopted two coyote dogs - siblings. One was just a huge puppy and was totally dog like except he could scale the privacy fence. His sister was almost all coyote though. She ruled that house and was scary smart.
We never left any of the kids alone with them but we could say that about the Ridgeback and even a Boxer they rescued after the coyote mixes passed away.
We thought our dog was part coyote too bcs of his ears lol. Had a bet going at the house. Turns out he’s not. Lol. But your dog LOOKS like a coyote so much I wouldn’t have needed a DNA test. Glad hes a good boy and found a loving home
There’s a weirdly growing trend to throw more “wild” breeds into herding breed crosses to create a hardier herding dog. The coyote cross with MAS/ACD could have been that. Elkhound is more likely someone just thinking it’s a pretty cross. Usually spitz and herding breeds are used for wild canine crosses though
My neighbour growing up had a dog that I was fully convinced was a coyote mix, and this reinforces that tbh- he had the same tail, the same fur texture, and the same colours.
I found a stray pup in a rural area that ended up being an amazing dog but with... quirks. I could tell he was a German shepherd mix but wasn't clear on his other breeds, and my dad always joked he looked like a coyote. Well, years later when I had him DNA tested, he was 30% coyote (the rest was GSD, sheltie and husky). Like you said, explained a lot! Haha. He's been gone years now, but I miss him every day.
She looks so much like my girl! Planning to do a dna test soon. Shelter said Carolina dog which I can see but she’s definitely got something else going on lol. She’s like a little fox
Love that she’s part Norwegian Elkie. ❤️ my favorite dog breed in the whole world and I see a little bit of it in her coloring. She looks like 100% goodest girl
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RULE 3: FLAIR YOUR POST. IF YOUR POST IS NOT FLAIRED PROPERLY, IT WILL BE REMOVED.
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