Chupacabra...caught by a taxidermist?

[Molyneux]

Video is at http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbea ... ideosearch

CNN itself doesn't seem to have anything more than the video - no written article.

Jerry Ayer at a taxidermy school claims that a student of his poisoned an odd dog-like creature...with unusual features such as "long front legs", and leathery skin.
I wasn't sure whether this should go here or under "News", but - I don't really expect anyone to take this too seriously. What I wanted to ask was, what do you think that thing is? It looks a bit to me like a coyote head put on a greyhound's body.

[Alyrium Denryle]

A feral greyhound with a skin condition...

Plus it is coming out of a taxidermy school. Can we really expect this to be legit?

[Molyneux]

A feral greyhound with a skin condition...

Plus it is coming out of a taxidermy school. Can we really expect this to be legit?

Oh, not at all - I was wondering how people figured he had faked it. This is the board for pseudoscience stuff, after all.

[Alyrium Denryle]

A feral greyhound with a skin condition...

Plus it is coming out of a taxidermy school. Can we really expect this to be legit?

Oh, not at all - I was wondering how people figured he had faked it. This is the board for pseudoscience stuff, after all.

Removed the fur and chemically treated the skin. Either that or he found (or raised) a greyhound with some sort of thyroid condition (or other congenital defect) or parasite infection. Mange comes to mind.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Could it also be a Mexican Hairless Dog?

[Pick]

"Chupacabras" are dogs with mange 99% of the time.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Could it also be a Mexican Hairless Dog?

Looking at it... yeah.

[Darth Raptor]

LOL, remember when chupacabras were supposed to look like spiny alien bat things?

[Zixinus]

Who the hell is the guy trying to fool? That's clearly a dog.

[Molyneux]

Who the hell is the guy trying to fool? That's clearly a dog.

I think they're trying to sell the chupacabra as a previously-unknown subspecies of coyote. Or something.

[The Spartan]

My first thought when seeing that was that it was a coyote they did something odd to.

[Kaiser Caesar]

Could it also be a Mexican Hairless Dog?

Looking at it... yeah.

The wiki article states that

It is possible, given the temperament of the Xolo breed, that escaped domesticated Xolo's and/or Xolo, coyote hybrids are the "mythical Chupacabra".

Of course, as usual, you must take anything on Wikipedia that is unsourced with a grain of salt, but if this is true, this is perhaps one of those hybrids or simply an escaped Xolo.

[Anarchist Bunny]

Living in South Texas, its getting rather annoying that pretty much ever year or so someone digs up one of these dogs and there is a media blitz about it. despite the fact that they found pretty much exactly the same thing last year, and it turns out to be the same damn thing ever time.

[Molyneux]

Living in South Texas, its getting rather annoying that pretty much ever year or so someone digs up one of these dogs and there is a media blitz about it. despite the fact that they found pretty much exactly the same thing last year, and it turns out to be the same damn thing ever time.

And...what does it turn out to be? A hoax, or one of those Xolos?

[Silver Jedi]

Living in South Texas, its getting rather annoying that pretty much ever year or so someone digs up one of these dogs and there is a media blitz about it. despite the fact that they found pretty much exactly the same thing last year, and it turns out to be the same damn thing ever time.

And...what does it turn out to be? A hoax, or one of those Xolos?

Yes. It can vary, but usually it turns out to be a particularly ugly or mangled dog/coyote/etc., or occasionally a deliberate hoax.

[Invictus ChiKen]

When did it change from a repitle critter to a dog?

[The Spartan]

When people realized that they could tell people they found a chupacabra when they came across a crossbreed dog or did something odd to a dead animal they found to make it look odd.

Kind of like the jackalope.

[Enola Straight]

It might be a fox: foxes sometimes go bald.

[Winston Blake]

When did it change from a repitle critter to a dog?

I bet some people always knew what it was.

A: Hey you guys, Carlos' friend saw a monster that was like a dog but totally not a dog because it had no fur! And one of his goats was dead!
B: It could be a reptile-dog!
A: Or a bat-dog!
B Or an alien-dog!
C: Or a reptile-bat-alien-vampire-dog!
D: What if it was, you know, a dog without fur. When they get mange their hair falls off, you guys.
A & B: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

C: You gotta FREE your MIND man! What are you, working for the goat-sucker-reptile-bat-alien-vampire-dogs, huh?

[Bluewolf]

These stories are becoming so common that I am starting to wonder why people even bother. I mean they pretty much all turn out the sme way.