A foster family who brought in an “extremely malnourished” dog gave him a nickname they thought better suited how he looked when they first rescued him—a coyote.
TikTok user @rileynm10 shared a throwback video on October 10 of the foster dog her family welcomed home that, at a glance, could be mistaken for a coyote. The foster, a skinny, multi-colored canine, perused the yard with slight hesitation. He was likely nervous after being rescued from the streets. The family fostered him through Final Victory Animal Rescue based out of Columbia, South Carolina.
“He was found on the highway in the summer basically burning to death on the pavement and was skin and bones,” the foster parent Riley told Newsweek via email. “He had a trachea problem and couldn’t eat any food because he would throw it up and had a lot of skin issues.”
Riley jokingly wrote in the video that a “coyote jumped our fence” and the family’s other dogs didn’t notice. The dogs followed him closely behind and before long, they were all running around playing in the yard together. People were thrown off that she believed the dog to be a coyote because a majority of viewers quickly pointed out that the dog looked like some type of shepherd mix.
However, they quickly realized her sarcasm as the caption reads: “Kidding he was just an extremely malnourished foster we had but we called him Yodi because he looked so coyote-like.”
@rileynm10/TikTok
Luckily, the dog’s coyote-like appearance didn’t scare off potential adopters. Riley said he is now in his forever home. She explained in the comment section that he made a full recovery too, growing all his fur back. He looks like a full German Shepherd to her, although he might have some other breeds mixed in.
People quickly took to the video, thinking they would see a coyote and as of Friday, it amassed over 3.8 million views, 557,900 likes and 924 comments on TikTok.
“The fact I know what coyotes look like and believed it for a second,” commented one user.
Another said: “I was about to say, ‘Careful it might try to lure your dogs into the forest with its pack’ but I just noticed the captions lol, glad u saved that pup!!”
Someone pointed out: “The way he just wants to play too omg.”
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