Father to the left, daughter in the middle facing us, submitting son to the right, down.
In a previous posting I described an observation involving a father coyote and his daughter running to an area where another of the pups from the same litter was being messaged to “leave”. This seems logical since any male would be competition for the father in this territory. However, another male youngster from the same litter has been allowed to remain. The explanations I can think of are, 1) this male and the female pup have always been best friends, and 2) this male submits readily, always, when asked to. He is not a threat and won’t be unless and until he rebels against always having to submit.
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- Everyone is interest in something
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- Yearling male, left, is forced to walk away
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- Dad growls at the male pup and this male pup buckles under
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- Male youngster, left, buckling under
Here are two incidents I observed recently. In the sequence above the male youngsters moves away from a possible “disagreement”, but he is made to buckle under anyway. Below three coyotes consisting of a dad, a daughter and a son, are interested in the same thing on the ground. Daughter considers the son, her brother, in the way and grabs his snout. Dad supports her with a growl and signs to the son to hit the ground. Son hits the ground obediently.
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- Dad to left, female daughter in the center doesn’t like something the male youngster, to our right is doing
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- Female youngster grabs submissive male youngster’s snout
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- Dad seems to agree with the daughter in the middle
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- Dad forces male to submit to the female
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- Female gets the male on his back
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- Submissive male on his back
