Here’s a fun photo-essay involving two coyotes and their ownership of a mouse.
SHE caught a mouse and began to play with it. HE, of course, noticed and approached.
Aware that HIS eyes were on HER mouse, she distanced herself fast.
Then she teased him and taunted him, provokingly, and continued to play with her mouse by tossing it and catching it, and dropping it sometimes: “ha ha, this is MINE and you can’t have it!!” But he watched her carefully, and . . .
the minute that little mouse was tossed a little too far, HE grabbed it and ran with it. She watched him tear off with it. Now it was HIS.
He distanced himself far enough not to be reached, and then played with what was now HIS prize. He kept looking over at her thinking she might try to grab it back. But she was sly and pretended not to care –she pretended to be otherwise occupied.
Then, when she felt HE believed that it didn’t matter to HER, and when he was occupied with “his” mouse and no longer watching her, she snuck over and,
now it was payback time: when that little mouse was tossed too far, SHE grabbed it and took off.
This time there was no more tossing the mouse around. Why take the chance of its being grabbed again? She chewed it up and down the hatch it went. After all, it had been HER mouse before HE stole it from her! And then she grabbed HIS snout in hers to show who was boss: she who laughs last . . .
Teasing each other is something coyotes do a lot of. It’s a form of interaction, and most of it is done in good-will.
Coyote Yipps 
