The picture can be deceiving, but that yote looks to be a good 15 pounds short of 60. I shot a male that weighed 39 1/2 pounds a few nights ago and judging by the picture, it was every bit as large, or larger, than what this one looks like. It looks to be full blooded coyote also. Coy dogs are not all that rare. It can and does happen in the wild. I followed coyote dogs for 50 years and have also trapped them hard.

Do you have any pics of Coy/dogs you could post.

ATB

head is very blocky, nose ain't pointed enough to be full yote, where was it shot? it looks smaller than a 50# coyote
RR

Only one way to know if an animal is a coydog and that is DNA. Anecdotal observations mean nothing. Not every animal of any species looks the same. The possibility of a coyote dog cross are very slim.

+1 RR and the ears are also definitely not a full blooded coyote. The guys that haven't heard of a coydog should google it and read up on them, as they are not real common, but definitely do occur.

I do not, but have personally seen one that was definitely crossed with a blue healer. NO DNA NEEDED. This was in Iowa, close to the Mississippi river. I had a rug from a very large Coy dog that was cauht by a friend with trail hounds in SW Missouri many years ago. There was a whole litter of them. That one was crossed with a large breed dog, perhaps a sheperd? The one I had the rug for was black in color, but some of the others seen in that group were different colored. I had the rug in my heated shop for several years. One of my dogs got loose in there and chewed it to pieces. It was torn to the point that I took it to the dump. There was a newspaper article that told of it and showed pictures. The Mo. DNR came to the unlikey conclusion that it was a Texas Red Wolf. Now you must remember that this was many years before DNA was ever heard of. I was given the rug after my friends death, but the newspaper article was never found by his wife. I have personally trapped a 40 pound black coyote. He was a large dominant male and I believe him to be full coyote, but not 100% certain. I also know of a red and black pair of yotes many years ago in this area. I saw them both together one day and put dogs after one of them, but did not harvest either of them. The black one was seen by several others that winter. I do not know whether anyone eventually shot it or not. These were in the begining times for coyotes in our area, so likely could have been coyote/dog crossed. I do have a pelt from a reddish colored coyote that I tanned myself. I caught it with one of my hounds perhaps 20 years ago. It is not the best of shape. Been hanging in my cabin. I'll see if I can take a picture of it. It appears to be full coyote, just colored wrong. That happens in nature. I have an orange colored coon and a coon that is mainly a gray with a snow white tail. I trapped both of those and have both of them mounted.

Black coyotes are not uncommon in PA, as well as red and other colors. The first one I have ever seen killed was a black in 1975. You guys are free to believe whatever you want, I will believe the researchers and a very good friend who did the coyote research studies in PA, that dog coyote crosses while not impossible are very rare and what most people call coydogs are coyote wolf hybrid several generations removed. Without DNA testing no one knows anything for sure except they are thriving.

I'm an old timer myself. I am not implying that coydogs are an everyday occurence. It happens. Coyotes were my game for half a century. I have hunted and trapped them from Northern MN. to the Arizona desert. I lived, ate and slept coyotes the same as many do the whitetail deer. I surely wish that I had a photo of the coyote/healer cross. It would be impossible to reach any other conclusion. I firmly believe the coyote pictired in this thread is just that, a coyote. For my money, it is no where near 60 pounds either. Block head, narrow head, whatever. We caught a coyote one time that was the longest bodied thing you ever saw. It's head was also very long and narrow, but it was a coyote. Not all humans have the same shaped head either :popcorn:

How true. With Mother Nature,anything is possible.

Tyme, not trying to start a personal argument, people believe what they believe. I am also not calling you a teller of untruths. Before DNA testing, everyone was talking about coydogs, some of the biologists leaned that way. As I said, the biologists have not absolutly ruled it out but say it would be rare. BTW, they have done some artificial insemination between dogs and coyotes in some of the research in order to have some kind of baseline. I am not a biologist, I have friends who are and since I buy a license and some of that money goes to salaries and research I have to believe what they are saying.:) I read somewhere that it would be difficult for dogs and coyotes to mate because there is a difference in the placement of the sex organs, I have looked at coyotes and I can't see the difference.