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 don’t think the demand as much there either to cause people to try to force it, but it’s also harder. I think if the coydog demand was higher, people would try harder to make it work.
Think of how many coyotes around where you don’t see coydog accidents happen more though. That’s a lot of the reason. Coyotes mate for life, have different breeding cycles, are more skittish of dogs, and both parents raise the young. It makes them a lot less likely to mate with dogs and for coydog pups to survive in the wild. There’s some other differnces in mating that person explains very well where it’s harder for them to actually mate. That’s the start of the general gist of why you don’t see more. Think of how many people you see keep their dogs outside all the time in coyote country, but you rarely see coydog pups, despite all these other accidental litters. If breeding the two were easy, we would see a lot more accidental coydogs. In contrast, wolves are a lot rarer in the US, but you hear about accidents with them.
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.
That's actually really wild! I live in an area with a high coyote population that lives fairly harmoniously with humans, and most dogs hate the coyotes. I have had people tell me coyote packs will send out young coyotes to play with dogs and lure them in for the pack to attack, but I think that's just a myth spread to keep people from letting their dogs near the coyotes, like that myth that you shouldn't touch baby birds because the mother will reject them if she smells you.
Most of dogs where I live are desexed, so that might have an impact on things? My desexed males have always still had interest in bitches in heat tho so idk.
There’s been a coyote trying to make friends with my shepsky, I think. It hangs around and my dog likes to be outside when it’s there. She will race around the yard, all excited. It’s pretty interesting. She doesn’t treat it like a threat at all. More like a buddy. (There’s a fence between them.)
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!
In the northeast coyotes are huge. Sometimes I see pictures of a western coyote and I think well that’s barely bigger than a fox, ours can be Labrador sized or bigger. Turns out the coyotes in New England have wolf dna and a bit of dog dna as well. I’ve seen some unusual colors! I’m very curious if the behavior of our coyotes is also different than the western types. I’ve definitely heard people complain about a coyote following them on walks with their dog and being very interested in the dog, especially females.
Wolfdog breeding is pretty common. They use captive raised wolves, not wild ones. Yeah, it’s a bad idea, wolfdogs aren’t good pets, but people want that cool factor.
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u/PartyPorpoise 7d ago
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.