Spinning

22 Jul 2010 2 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, playing

Spinning is what happens when you try to catch your own tail. You end up going round and around, faster and faster. No matter how fast you spin, your tail remains out of reach. So you change directions, hoping that this might be the right solution, but you get no closer than you did before. Dogs do this. Today I saw a wild coyote do it!! I watched for dizziness when the coyote had finished, but I didn’t see it!

2 Comments (+add yours?)

Maggie
Jun 27, 2026 @ 10:59:49

I was standing in my Portland, OR yard late at night and saw a coyote running down the middle of the street. Instead of passing by he veered into my yard and started chasing his tail around and around just like your great photos. It was so strange and cool. It felt like a gift!

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- yipps:janetkessler
  Jun 27, 2026 @ 12:33:37
  
  Nice! He/she was either having fun chasing his/her tail, OR was trying to handle an itch or pain on that tail. Could you tell which?
  
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About My Site and Me: This website reflects my almost 20 years of intense, careful, and dedicated field-work — empirical observations — all photo-documented without interfering or changing coyotes’ behaviors. Be welcome here, enjoy, and learn! I am a self-taught naturalist and independent coyote researcher.

Coyotes reappeared in San Francisco in 2002 after many years of absence, and people are still in the dark about them. This site is to help bring light to their behavior and offer simple guidelines for easy coexistence.

My information comes from my own first-hand observations of our very own coyotes here in San Francisco. What I’m presenting to you is the reality of their everyday individual lives. They have not been studied or observed so thoroughly by anyone else. Mine is not generic information, nor second-hand.

Note that none of the coyotes I document and photograph is “anonymous” to me: I know (or knew) each one of them, and can tell you about their personalities, histories, and their family situations. There have been over 100 of them, distributed among over twenty families, all in San Francisco. Images and true stories have the power to raise awareness and change perspective.

Contact: Janet@coyoteyipps.com

© All information and photos in my postings come from my own original and first-hand documentation work which I am happy to share, with permission and with properly displayed credit: ©janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com.

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