Kevin writes:
"There are melanistic coyotes out there. Including those with white tipped
tails. Like this one (**for the sensitive**: don't look at other photos in
that collection ... a lot of them are coyote hunter photos).

http://media.photobucket.com/image/black%20coyote/jaylangston/BlackCoyote2sm
all.jpg

Did it look like the one you saw? It does look more "rangy" and "dog-like"
than my mental version of a "normal" coyote but I think that's more in my
mind than in reality: it's colliding with mental images of black dogs."

I would be willing to bet that many of the "coyotes" on the Jay Langston
Black coyote site are roaming dogs that stepped into leg hold traps. (I'd
refer to picture numbers but that site kept causing my browser to freeze and
I gave up.) There is a black and tan "coyote" with medium-length, almost
short hair in a pick-up bed that especially does not look like a coyote.
Another one, a red sable with a white chin, looked virtually identical to
one of my current dogs. I don't know about the mangy dark-colored animal.

It's hard to tell how many different animals are being shown on the Langston
site, and sometimes, it's hard to get perspective on size. I was even
wondering if a few of them might actually be black/silver phase red foxes.
Red foxes do have prominent white tail tips.

I am not sure I would rule out the original poster having seen a cross phase
or a silver phase fox. Here is an excellent picture of a cross phase fox on
Mt. Rainier:

http://www.summitpost.org/mt-rainier-fox/513340

Kelly Cassidy