Coyotes are notorious for being cunning and aggressive, however the coyote in this post is an exception. He demonstrates that wild animals are just as playful as the pets we live with and adore.

Pamela Underhill Karaz, a photographer who lives in a remote part of upstate New York, discovered this wild coyote in her property one morning. The coyote saw a toy in the snow and played with it.

“He got to the center, glanced over, and then decided to come back up a little. He left his smell on a felled branch (how I knew it was a male), then walked into the trees and emerged at the border of our yard. He looked about, investigated out, and sniffed several footprints in our yard before seeing the toy. He approached it, smelled the area where our dog had rolled, sniffed the toy, picked it up, dropped it, and sniffed it again.”

Then the adorable moment occurred. “[He] grabbed it up and began to toss it up in the air and play with it, exactly like a dog would. It took him about five to ten minutes to pick up the toy, fling it in the air, pick it up again and practically buck about with it… and then he just nonchalantly strolled off with it.”

Karaz, fortunately, filmed the entire event on her camera and uploaded the photographs on social media. She believes this is not the first time the “Toy Thief” has visited her yard, as the toys have vanished several times.

“This was such a beautiful reminder that all creatures, wild and domestic (our pets), are not that dissimilar. They have personalities, they have sentiments, and they do their best to survive in what can be a hostile world at times. They’re not all that different from us.”

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