Coydogs

Oh and I forgot to add, we also have a couple of cats that this dog plays with but since we got her very young she's pretty good with them. We just had to train her to know that they belong in the house and she didn't have an issue. However once a strange cat wandered into our yard and she eviscerated it.

Although some of you may THINK that a Collie and a Coyote can NOT breed, I am here to tell you that you are oh so very wrong. In 1975, while living in northern Alberta, a farmer approached my father with a problem. His female Collie was involved with a male coyote. The result... He had a litter of half breed puppies that the farmer did not want. I was happy to find out that my father rescued one of these puppies and brought her home. She had the markings of a collie, however her coloring was not as red as a collie but more mixed like a coyote. She was extremely intelligent and loyal. She did not like to live indoors with us and preferred to live under the porch. When she had pups with a stray dog, she taught her pups how to hunt. She had all of the primal instincts of a coyote, but was as loyal as a collie. We had the very best of both worlds.

So, in short, yes it is possible for the two to breed, bust as possible as it is for a Wolf and a Husky to breed

I own a mix husky, coyote, german shepherd mix named Cheyenne..I've had lots of dogs and this one is the most intelligent I,ve ever had..crafty, and a hunter since he was 4 months old and caught his first mouse under the snow!! He will hunt and eat anything smaller than him..which can be a drag! He loyal, affectionate, dominant and very independant..he stays outside and is uncomfortable inside the house. His father was a half german shepherd/coyote mix..I find the first generations are not quite nice looking dogs, but the second generation are much nicer..he actually looks like a Rare Japanese Shikoku Inu..same size, weight, colour, eyes, muzzle except he has a coyote tail and not a spitz curled tail over his back. His grandmother was a pure german shepherd who disappeared in the woods for 3 weeks when she was in heat..we all saw her several times around the house to get food and saw her lone coyote boyfriend hanging around! Cheyenne's mom is a husky. We have the large Eastern coyotes here which can get up to 65 lbs, are reddish and actually are a genetic hybrid of the red eastern wolf and coyote. The red wolf was killed off about a century ago by the settlers . For sure, he has a stubborn streak and it take patience and a firm hand to train him. Beauty wise, he is gorgeous and in fall we have to be careful in the woods..my neighbours almost shot him thinking he was a coyote!!

Humans and chimpanzees may never breed with each other. But, the're still genetically close enought that chimps can be transfused with human blood!

As for coyotes and dogs being unable to hybridize? I've read where there's increasing evidence that the so-called "red wolf" (Canis rufus) might never have existed at all. That they were actually just gray wolf/coyote cross-breeds all the time!

If this is true, it's easier to understand the belief that C. rufus has possibly gone "extinct." Most hybrids--the mule is the best example of this--are born infertile. So, coy-wolves are most likely not able to breed with each other, anymore than coy-dogs are.

I know of a lady who bred coydogs.

Here is her link.

http://www.coydog.us/

So yes they can be bred together.
They are not infertile...

Please, note that I did use the word "most."

Not--repeat: NOT-- "all."

Big difference.

Our family has a coydog. Actually, it's a BorderCoyCollieDog. I won't explain further, just this sentence that states that if you can't figure out the half and half of it by the name, you shouldn't have a dog or a license to drive.
She can be a very sweet, nice dog. However, she gets mean at very inappropriate times. She is especially mean around food. I can pet her, and she will growl, even to the point of showing her teeth. But 2 seconds after a petting attempt, she licks my hand as it leaves her head. In fact, she licks my hand while growling.
Does anyone know if half coyotes have a tendency to be meaner than regular dogs? She has had a very gentle upbringing, (maybe too gentle. That may be the reason she thinks she can treat anyone however she likes,) and so far has attacked our puppy once requiring stitches. The puppy is now bigger than she is, and can fend for herself if she wishes to -- in fact the two are very close but the BorderCoyCollieDog still growls at very inappropriate times.
Any help or advice would be met with extreme appreciation.
Thank you.

I would like to point out the flaw in the biologist's theory in this document. In fact, the quoted material makes the biologist look like a complete moron. He/She stated
"Coyotes go in to heat between January and March and have pups in May or June, while dogs have their pups in winter."
I don't know much about coyotes, but dogs start going into heat 6 months after birth. Sometimes as soon as 4 months. There is no set time for heat in a female dog. However, after the first heat, you can expect another heat 6 months later or 12 months later. Dog's don'g just "have their pups in winter."
I understand this biologist is working towards a PHD while teaching. He/She should be fired for lack of competence. I know for a fact that dogs go into heat at different times of year. That said...
Even if dogs go into heat at different times than coyotes do, that wouldn't matter, because male dogs/coyotes don't have a heat cycle, and can make puppies whenever they wish. Same with the other way around, but I doubt a female coyote would let a male dog get in too deep so easily.
This is ludicrous. When some people hear something that sounds bizarre to them, they have to start lying and making false statements to not only make themselves sound smarter than other people, but try to disprove the bizarre occurrence.
Way to go Chrissie Henner, biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.. you are a proven moron.

Actually, Mr Darringer, male coyotes are only fertile once a year, like the females. Also, what your dog is showing is called food aggression, which is not at all rare in domestic dogs. It means he never learned as a pup that its ok for you to touch his food. As far as attacking the other dog, this is called "dog aggression", and is also not uncommon at all in domestic dogs. I have never heard of coydogs as being more aggressive than other dogs. However, if they are anything like wolfdogs, then they are probably harder to train and so might be more susceptible to certain behavioral issues simply because of poor (or lack of) training. Its important to note that this can also be true of harder-to-train dog breeds such as huskies, german shepherds, or border collies 😉 If your dog is showing aggression issues, its probably because it was poorly bred or not properly trained. It's not a sign that its part coyote.

So Seijun, I guess this means that if you wish to breed a coyote and a dog, you would have to find a dog that has her heat cycle at the same time as a specific male coyote?
I have never bred dogs, but have known people that have. They never had much trouble using the same male dog to impregnate different female dogs that had heat cycles at different times of year, as far as I could perceive.
Thank you for your information, Seijun. But would you say that the biologist made a pretty disinformed assumption that coydogs could not exist because all dogs go into heat at specific times of the year that are different from all coyotes?

hiya. i got my alleged coydog dna-tested. not a coydog. interesting! the test is called wisdom panel mx by mars vet. check it out.

Yes, if you want to make a coydog you must have your female dog in heat at the same time the male coyote is fertile. It is the same way with male wolves (they are only fertile during the winter months when the females are in heat). Alternatively, you could just use a female coyote and breed her to a male dog once she is in heat since male dogs are fertile year-round.
Yes, I would have to agree that anyone saying coydogs are impossible to create due to their different breeding cycles is misinformed. The different cycles does make it very rare for coydogs to occur naturally (especially since coyotes and dogs generally don't interact positively with one another anyway), but its not impossible.

Re jay scheckley's post: I went to the wisdom site and searched for info about coyotes. Couldn't find any. Coyote was not one of the "breeds" the test identifies. I also googled the url and coyote which usually turns up a match if there is one on the site, but it didn't.

Almost anyone who lives in a small town in the west has seen coyote males trotting around town looking for females in heat (or cats to eat). They aren't exactly shy about it. Perhaps it's true that they only come into heat once a year but so what? Here's a photo of my coydog:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44652461@N00/1451438266/in/set-72157611622989177/

Her mom was half G. Shepherd but her daddy was a coyote. She's a great dog.

no i agree kay, they dont test for coyote dna. but people kept saying my dog was a coydog. the wisdom panel test found that 3 dog breeds account for 80-100% of his lineage. so, that is helpful on the coydog question.

kay that s a very handsome animal. id be fascinated to know what a dna test said.

DNA doesn't matter to me because I already know what she is. Both my dogs are from a rez (one from southern BC and the other from the north). The northern one is shepherd/shar pei of all things. Here she is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44652461@N00/

The photo is fuzzy but you can see the shar pei. It's like that with coydogs. They are also quite distinctive. We've had four over our lifetime. One was probably pure coyote but the others were mixes. One didn't look coy at all but the thing is that they play different and act different than dogs. Seeing two of them together is very distinctive especially the way they instinctively work together to hunt.

A Indian kid in our neighborhood said "hey, you've got a coydog. I'm getting one for Christmas". And he did, too. They are really quite different and easily identified once you've known a few of them, imo.

"Perhaps it's true that they only come into heat once a year but so what?"
Because that's what the article in question is all about, ya know.. the one at the top of the page that is the main subject of this article? That coydogs can't exist because of different times of heat/fert. cycles?
I was just bringing attention to the fact that it's quite absurd what was stated in the article.

Yes, that's what I meant, Mr. D. When coyotes come into heat doesn't really matter because there will always be a few female dogs around who happen to be in heat. Our very first coydog had a Norwegian Elkhound mother and her owners claimed to have seen her bred by a coyote who had come to town (Golden BC) looking to party. I have no reason to doubt that this is true. People here are not all that wowed by wandering coyotes and wouldn't bother to make up such a story, in my experience.

We got our puppy in the fall when she was about 6 weeks old which means she was conceived 15 weeks or about 4 months earlier which was June or July. This doesn't correlate with the notion that coyote males only breed once a year in January to March.

I uploaded another photo of our coydog and her little friend who is a Yorkie/Shi Tzu. The Shorkie rules unless there is a bone involved but Kaiya has never done any other dog any harm. She is, however, pure hell on mice. She learned to mouse from a National Geographic video about wolves and coyotes in Yellowstone Park. Never had a clue about it until she watched that show on tv and now she wipes them out by the dozens.

Oops. Forgot to link to the photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44652461@N00/

This morning (5/12/10) at 0405 in Brookline MA, I awoke from a sound sleep to the sounds of what I thought was a woman being attacked. I grabbed my pistol and headed out the front door in my underwear. I ran about half a block to discover my cat (making a god-awful noise) with a Coydog about one yard behind him. When I yelled, the Coydog popped off the sidewalk and crouched alongside the curb. The Coydog then moved to the other side of the street and continued to parallel us as I hustled my cat into the house. The Coydog stayed still for about ten seconds even after I closed my stormdoor.
The Coydog was about thirty pounds, Coyote brown in color. He had a typical coyote head but much smaller than the coyotes I have seen from my tree stand while hunting. His legs were much shorter and I would have to descrbe him as ugly, ugly ugly.
I would have shot him if he had not crossed the street.
If you still choose to maintain your delusion that Coydogs do not exist, carry on ingnorance but please do not lead others into ignorance.

I hate stating the obvious, but if you didn't let your cat wander around outside unattended, you wouldn't have to worry about things eating it. Predators don't kill to be evil, they kill to survive. If your pets or livestock get killed or injured because YOU let them off on their own with NO protection whatsoever, you have no one to blame but yourself!

Where is sundance located?

Sundance Ranch is located here....
http://www.coydog.us/
Shows a slide show where you can see her beautiful coydogs.
Located in Oregon.....

Do you have an e-mail address, or regular address for them-The link on the web page does not work. Thanks

Hi Shane,
The email address on the bottom of the page should work.

i am new to this site and have been trying to find info on coydogs. we have a female that is almost 2yrs old and everyone tells us she looks like a coyote. i have read characteristics of the coyote and other breeds of dogs and i am thinking she may be a coydog. the people we got her from said she is saintbernard, malamut, husky cross, and you can see those breeds in the parents, but not in her.....she looks nothing like mom or dad.
if anyone has information on the coydog or believe they own one or have owned one in the past....your help would be greatly appreciated in helping us determine if we do infact have a coydog or not.
our vetrinarian said there may be a possibility but chances are very slim.

thanks

We live in a small town in Southern Colorado. Coyotes are everywhere and I cannot imagine any healthy animal is going to overlook the opportunity to breed when it presents itself. I own two puppies that ARE coydogs. The mother is half German Shepherd half Austrailian Shepherd. The father is half German Shepherd half coyote-confirmed by the veternarian. Both pups have characteristics of all three breeds; one colored like a German shepherd; one colored like an Aussie; both built like coyotes.

hey, sorry but you people do not know much about dogs and breeding, I had a litter of 4 coydog pups and saw dad and my shar pei breeding..... I have lived in foothills for 50 years and know coyotes, this was not planned on my part and male coyotes only are able to breed acouple of months out of the year so it does not happen often,but there are alot of coydogs out there. American Indians breed their dogs to wolfs and coyotes for new bloodlines all the time, Russia has police canines, who are part jackel and many police working dogs in Europe are part wolf.... wolf hybrids are timid animals and not mean but often have stupid owners who should not have them and finally no foxes can not breed with dogs ...hey your library has lots of books with all this imformation... and my coydog is one of the smartest and loving animals I have ever had but she does kill chickens...also the wolf in dancing in wolf were half coyotes and half husky and the ower breeds this hybrid for pets.

Coydogs are real. I had one. She came from a shelter as a sheltie mix. Decided about a month later she was coy. I would give anything to have her back. She died too soon she was only about two and a half to 3 yrs old. Lookin back at her symptoms and treatment responses it seems she had liver disease? Don't know if it was the sheltie or coy in her. I know shelties are prone to endocrine system disorders?? She was great and I miss her a lot!!!

People are so certain of whatever they make up. Finally I had my 10 pound alleged coydog dna tested, via the Wisdom Panel MX Mixed breed blood test. Results: equal parts Pomeranian, Border Terrier, and Olde English Sheepdog! Yes I believe the results, in that they are based on more than looks, and more than anything else here is. I look forward to the day schools begin to teach again the worthlessness of completely unsubstantiated opinion.

Hi, so far there is no DNA test that determines if
a dog has wolf or coyote in them.Not even the Wisdom Panel MX test.Maybe someday there will be.

Forgot to mention the Wisdom Panel MX
is the only one that I know of that tests the blood,
not saliva,so it's alot more accurate and it has the DNA of over 90 AKC breeds..
But none have the DNA of wild canids,to find out
if our dogs have wild in them.

hello my name is peggy and zoey is a 1 1/2 year old german shep/?? mix. her mother is a pure bred GSD impregnated by ?? male resulting in an unwanted litter (most died shortly after i took zoey at 2mos old)
on her second heat she was impregnated by Huck my 7yr old gsd/collie/husky mix. a wanted litter! the litter was born healthy, 4boys and 4 girls, all lived. i am happy to report both are excellent parents, huck even helping to lick the pups dry after birth!
all of the pups have a mark on their tails, which i have recently discovered is something called a pre-caudal mark. a mark above a scent gland in their tails, something that is present in wolfs and coyotes, not dogs.
so recently i have been concidering the posibility that she may be a coydog..
her mother was in heat during the male coyotes fertile time(oct-dec from what i've read online) and gave birth jan 19 2009 in northern alabama. there were 10 pups, 2 of which were female, she was the largest female. her fur is tri colored on back, cream to red to black on a single strand, with the gaurd hairs (after shedding and litter of pups) start black go white then black and some turn white again. she has red across her head and back of ears on her nose and all of her legs. red/cream and black on her sides and a very prominate black strip down her entire back (cream and white speckled with the shedding of her winter coat) she also has the pre-caudal mark on her tail.
i should just post picts!
anyway, in my online searching i also stumbled across the red wolf. believed to be a cross between gray wolf and coyote, the red wolf is in the area where she was born. some of the picts of red wolfs that i found could be her except her muzzle is black. also her eyes are striking! they are light brown gold and green, and more almond shaped than round.. i do not have the resourses to have her DNA tested and online research has only produced mostly more questions. i have noticed she runs with her tail out for a few inches then it pointes straight down at the ground, like an upside down L. that is supposedly a coyote trait. anyone who knows anything about coydogs or red wolfs could you please help me to identify her heritage? any information would be helpful, and any critisisim about letting my dogs breed will be taken with a grain of salt.

[i am not a puppymill, i wanted them to breed, many of the puppies had people to go to before the litter was born (due mostly to the awesome nature of the father)and all eight were homed between week 8 and 9 with emphisis on them bringing the dogs back to me if ther found that they could not provide an adiquite home for the puppy they chose. only positive feedback so far and they are 12wks old. we also kept a puppy, a girl that looks just like her mom but has her dads eyes!]
Thanks to all for trudging thru this far too long post and any insight you may provide

There's pics of my coydog on my myspace and facebook. I'm rad3078 or rebecca decker, rebecce decker-schlueter or ms bobby joe schlueter on them u can see pics. I have 2 sadies tho? I had sadie mae first she's charpe/german shepard. Little sadie was small about 20#. She was a sheltie mix but I'm sure she was coydog? She died of health problems I posted earlier here. There's not much info on coydogs. I know shelties have endocrine system disorders but unsure about coys? Found couple of posts from ppl that constantly had health problems but it seemed most didn't but coys are rare?? Its only been a little over a week since she died and I miss her soo much and cry everyday.. I think she may of had liver disease? All my pets are special but she was REALLY special. I didn't adopt her because she was coy..didn't realize that 4 about a month? But that just made her personality even better...

@ zoey:
Do you mean a dark or black mark on the tail or the actual gland?

Many dogs have a dark spot midway down their tail, GSD and husky included.
While it is true that most dogs do not have the actual precaudal gland, I have found owners of husky, mal, and GSD who have reported having dogs with this gland, so yes, dogs CAN have the gland.

The color you describe sounds like possibly agouti. Again, huskies and GSD can both come in this color, and also have the eye color you describe.

Both dogs and coys can hold their tail. With huskies, that is actually the akc standard, that they hold their tail strait down behind them when standing at rest. Basically, there is no single trait that is specific only to coyotes. Any physical coy or wolf trait can also be found in dogs. All of what you describe are traits that can be found in dogs, esp huskies and gsd, and they do not indicate coyote heritage, though she does sound like a very beautiful dog.

@ rebecca: your facebook page doesn't have any pics showing publicly.

Someone told me that coyotes and coydogs would have..double row back teeth?? Not sure what they were talking about exactly tho? I decided my dog was coy as a combination of looks and how she acted. I didn't realize my photos wernt public but I just changed the settings to everyone. I did it from my blackberry tho so hope it took?

No idea what the double teeth thing means. Dogs and coys have the same number and types of teeth.

Real coydogs are very rare. The only behaviors I have ever seen in coys and not in dogs (yet) is the behavior "gaping" and their scream-like call. There may be others, but I think you would need to talk to a real coy expert to find them out.

Here is a video of coyotes "howling" and it also gives a good view of what they look like. The background noise if people trying to howl with the coys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJGv9bWBwYI

My sadie would howl and scream. That's what made me really think she was a coyote. She would do it when my husband or son howled. We didn't teach it to her she did it the first time my son howled at her after I told him I thought she was coy. I miss her howl so much. She was so sweet.

fyi I still cannot see the facebook pics. Can you provide a link? If she was half coyote she will look it.

As for picts, i just started a facebook a few months ago(i don't even have a pict of myself up!) but my boyfriend has picts of Zoey on his facebook (Ben Saxon) in the hitchhiking '09 album. she is the smaller of the two dogs the other is Huck. i will work on getting better picts.
about the tail spot;the mark is about four inches from the base of zoey's tail. a spot consistantly appears in the same place on all the pups. kinda looks like a stingray..
about huskies; huck is part husky that could account for the tails on the pups but not zoey..
zoey's mother is an outside dog in an area where coyotes are rampent, considered a pest, and shot on sight. i have read that coyotes will mate with dogs or wolfs when no other suitable partener is found.. could a 'shoot on sight' standard effect the number of female coyotes available to breed? i think yes.. but again, no one knows for sure who zoey's father is... this is why the research.
on the matter of coydog experts; do any exist?! the wide variety of information i have found online (which varies from 'coydogs do not exist' to 'we sell coydogs') i am begining to feel like maybe there is no positive expert on the matter. i would also like to point to a study in nebraska in the 70's that suggest coydogs are far more prevalent than one might think..here's the link

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2424840

so to say "coydogs are rare" i think is a misinformed statement. what seems to be rare is any true insight to the nature of coydogs..
i still don't know if zoey is part coyote or not..
it doesn't matter to me other than to be able to better understand zoey better..
keep the insight coming! i thank all of you for your help in understanding my zoey..

"Both dogs and coys can hold their tail. With huskies, that is actually the akc standard, that they hold their tail strait down behind them when standing at rest."
it's not when she is at rest, when she runs fast she holds her tail pointed straight at the ground bent down right about that precaudal mark. the mark is true black on her and the pups.

If you want to see real coydogs look here.
http://www.coydog.us/
She is s friend of mine and knows everything
about them...She is sometimes hard to reach since
she is so busy,so any questions you want to ask,
I can do it for you.
Her dogs are a good example of what they look like.
Hers are Siberian husky/coy crosses.
She doesn't breed them anymore...

to michelle:
i have been to that site and watched the slide show. beautiful dogs!
so here are my questions:

are any of these things considered coydog traits?
(keep in mind that zoey's mom is a pure german shepherd)

-she holds her ears pointed and out to the side when ever she is at ease
-she runs with her tail pointed sharply downward
-she has 3 and even 4 bands of color on a single gaurd hair, and up to 3 (cream red and black) bands of color on her coat hairs and thick cream colored under coat
-her eyes are brown gold and green (mothers eyes are dark brown)
-her middle two toes are close together with the nails close to center rather than evenly spaced

i am working on getting picts linked

thank you for any compairsons you may be able to draw

I've posted here before about my coy dog. More recently, I acquired a dog from an Indian reservation in north British Columbia. The vet thought she was GDS/shar pei but after he fixed her eyes (the lids folded in and caused irritation - a shar pei trait) she looks like a grey wolf to me. I posted this photo on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44652461@N00/4948977902/

I also googled grey wolf images and found many like her. This image of grey wolves looks just like her, at least to me:

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Wolves-Posters_i3365067_.htm?aid=1804874111&LinkTypeID=2&PosterTypeID=1&DestType=7&Referrer=http://www.squidoo.com/wolfcollectibles

Both the coy and this (maybe) wolf cross are smart, peaceful dogs except when they work together to catch rabbits and annoy squirrels.

@ zoey's friend: My point was that dogs can and do hold their tails strait down, and it does not indicate wild heritage.

Looked at your myspace album, there were pics of a joe and sadie that looked like bulldog mixes or possibly pitbull mixes. There was another dark brown and white one called sadie that looked much more coyish, but hard to tell. She could also have been mixed with some sort of herding dog like basenji, kelpie or Australian catttle dog. Breeds like these can sometimes throw some very coyish looking offspring I've noticed, because they already have the small size, large pointed ears, and triangular face that most eople already associate with coyotes--there was a purebred australlian cattle dog I once knew that when seen from afar always fooled me into thinking I was looking at a coyote, he even kept his tail pointed strait down as you mentioned.

The paper you linked to was interesting, but was done in the 1970's and regarding free-ranging/wild dogs, coyotes, and coydogs in only a single state. No genetic testing was done I might add, only visual phenotyping of skulls, which is not an exact science. That aside, even 44 coydogs in a single state over two years is low considering at the time that state probably had thousands of dogs. Pet coydogs ARE extremely rare in comparison to the population of pet dogs. On the other hand, the number of pet dogs that look coyish is very high. 😉

Regarding her precaudal mark: As I mentioned earlier, pure dogs can have both the dark mark on their tail and the actual gland. The dark mark is much more common.

Couldn't find no pics of zoey. Perhaps I have the wrong rebecca schlueter in Petersburg TN. The profile says married and no mention of a "Ben Saxon".

By expert I mean someone who does have a lot of experience with coydogs. Sundance is the only place I know of that breeds (or bred) coydogs. You could also try the yahoo group wdchatter, someone there might also be able to help. It is a wolfdog list but some members have coy experience.

All the traits you mentioned are both dog and coyote traits. The fur is called agoutie and is a dog and coyote color.

Your sharpei mix looks exactly like a sharpei or akita mix. The wolf pictures you are looking at are somewhat misleading since the animals are in their winter coats and it makes them look bulkier. Their chests are actually very narrow, only wide enough for three fingers. They have /extremely/ long legs and muzzles, and small, rounded, furry ears. Their paws are huge. Your sharpei has none of these traits. Try doing google image searches for wolves in their summer coats

to seijun: rebecca is sadie's friend.
i am zoey's friend. sorry for the confusion.. look for penny day on face book and there are a few picts up now, and more later.

I'm not the one with zoey. On myspace and facebook my dogs are joe boxer the boxer mix. Sadie mae. She's charpe/ german shepard. And lit sadie who is a sheltie mix. It wasn't just her looks that made me think she was coy but they made me wonder. When she started howling/screaming like a coyote that's when I decided yup she's got some coyote in her. She would usually only do it if my husband or son did it. Or if I left her inside when I was outside and she wanted out.... She was great tho. And I miss her dearly..