Coyotes are part of the same family as dogs. They can be found in Alaska and Canada all the way down into Mexico and Central America. The word “coyote” was originally a Spanish translation of the Aztec word “coyotl”.  In Native American stories, Coyote is intelligent, sneaky and has a big appetite.  Coyote is both a hero who creates, teaches, and helps humans; and an antihero who shows the dangers of negative behaviors like greed, recklessness, and pride; in still other stories, he is a trickster whose lack of wisdom gets him into trouble while his cleverness gets him back out. In some stories, he is even some sort of combination of all three at once.

Purrs, Gulliver