A coydog might look like a dog with a wild streak, but the reality is a lot messier—and rarer—than the legends suggest. True coydogs, meaning a 50/50 coyote–dog hybrid, do exist, but they’re uncommon in the wild and most often the result of intentional captive breeding. What people usually call a “coydog” is either a strangely colored coyote, a feral dog, or an Eastern coyote—an animal that already carries trace wolf and dog DNA from interbreeding that happened generations ago as coyotes expanded east after wolves disappeared. Modern coyotes almost never mate with dogs thanks to mismatched breeding cycles, monogamous pair bonds, and basic biological barriers. Still, when an actual hybrid does turn up, it’s not some halfway house pet—it’s a wild predator with unpredictable behavior and fewer survival instincts than a pure coyote. Bottom line: the term gets thrown around way too loosely, the animal belongs firmly in the wild, and mistaking it for something tame is how trouble starts fast.
Read more about coydogs via Outdoor Life here.
Check out this post by Outdoor Writer, Stephen Ziegler, who is also the owner of DeLong Lures:
Have you ever seen a coydog?
Stephen Ziegler also posted this after the post above went viral:
