Dog becomes best friends with coyote, and they play together every day

Dogs and coyotes are both canines, and while their behavior differs in a lot of ways, they’re still pretty closely related — and look similar enough that sometimes it’s easy to mix them up.

And sometimes, dogs will even become friends with their wilder “cousins.” That’s what one adorable video shows, as a friendly dog happily plays in the snow with his best friend coyote.

The video comes from Mark Lagace, from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, Canada. His pet, a male black dog named Rocky, has became quite close with a female coyote he calls Wolfy.

He wrote that they were “best friends” for a “couple [of] years now.” The video shows the two happily playing together in the snow.

Even though they were different species, these two had an unbreakable bond. “Look, your girlfriend’s here,” Mark tells Rocky.

Mark wrote on YouTube that the coyote had injured her foot years prior but was “doing fine.”

Dogs and coyotes don’t always get along so well: some pets, especially smaller ones, have been attacked by wild coyotes. Unlike dogs, coyotes are wild and undomesticated, and can sometimes view small pets as prey.

But other studies have shown that dogs and coyotes can be playful with one another. Not only is “Wolfy” not hostile to Rocky, but in fact she protected him from other coyotes.

“She never put him in danger and did not let any other Coyotes near him,” Mark wrote on Facebook.

But her playful bond with Rocky did not extend to Mark: “I could not pet her at all,” he wrote. “She never let me… but she would let me get close to her about 5 feet.”

Rocky and Wolfy were the best of friends, and played together every day for three years.

But sadly, the coyote has since passed on: Mark writes that she “got hit by a snow machine” two years ago.

Still, their story — and the heartwarming video of them playing together — is a reminder that sometimes friendships transcend species, and that sometimes wild animals aren’t so different from our own pets.