Security Camera Captures Coyote Playing With Toys a Dog Left Out in the Yard
Some backyard trouble starts with a broken fence or a missing ball, but this one involved a coyote with a taste for dog toys. Brian Chisholm and his dog, Sancho Panza, kept finding Sancho’s toys disappearing from their yard, then turning up scattered in a nearby field.
After the third night, Chisholm and Sancho went looking for the missing toys and found the trail of evidence. A camera set up in the yard finally answered the question of who was taking them, and the answer was a little more playful than anyone expected.
The thief came back for another round, and this time the whole thing was caught on camera. Read on.
This is Sancho. And someone has been using his toys at night and leaving them scattered all over the neighboring properties.
Sancho's toys had evidently been discovered by a coyote, who decided to have some fun with them night after night. Chisholm now had proof, and he was taken aback when he saw the perpetrator.
"I figured it would be a fox, not a lone coyote," Chisholm says. "Even more surprising was his playfulness."
The camera has captured one happy coyote:
Sancho may not have been delighted to share his toys with a coyote, but there was no real harm done in the end. And he won't have to share them indefinitely.
"We go out in the morning and pick the toys up," Chisholm said, adding, "The coyote has not been here for the past couple of nights."
The coyote couldn't be happier with his newfound playground
Do wild animals play? If you’ve seen a wild animal playing, you probably saw a mammal, because 80% of mammals play.
Some intelligent birds play, too, such as ravens, which will pick up and play with almost any object, from sticks to keys to bottle caps. Science News says even crocodiles show evidence of some play behavior.
But what precisely is play, and why is it important?
Animal play is defined by the science of animal behavior, ethology, as a voluntary action conducted for pleasure and satisfaction that does not directly promote survival. Play differs from every other activity in that it requires creativity.
Play frequently entails manipulating an object to see what it will do or attempting new body positions to push the animal's own boundaries.
We have to admit, this coyote sure did push some boundaries. Leaving toys scattered all over the place after using them?
No manners...
After the coyote stole Sancho’s toys, see how one resident posted a lost-but-found rescue.
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