What animal is this?

[Fuddy1952]

We're in S. Central Virginia. I was doing some work with my tractor when I decided to drive up next to the woods. I got within 50-60 ft. of this animal trotting along. Lucky I had phone with me, took a few pictures (not that clear), but it wasn't afraid of me or tractor. It was size of a very large dog. We have foxes, but they're much smaller. A coyote? To me size of a wolf or very large dog. Brown/reddish, black ripped tail. Long fur.
Neighbors have four goats not that far away. This animal was twice their size. View attachment 616732View attachment 616733

 

[/pine]

In the pics it does not look as big as the goats...
I don't think Chupacabras have black tipped tails...Bobcats do though but they are not usually tawny colored...

 

[MossRoad]

looks small to me. do you have a picture that's not blown up? i'm guessing bobcat size.

 

[Chris616]

The black tipped tail and the vertical white patch behind the shoulder match a Belgian Malinois.

A similarly coloured dog with long fur is the Belgian Tervueren.

Chris

 

[Fuddy1952]

It's bigger than the goats, although the goats are not very large. The neighbors have two collies like Lassie and they run with goats. The dogs are larger than goats, I'm guessing 20% larger.
This animal was larger than those collies by a fair margin. I'd say much closer to wolf sized.

 

[jjp8182]

First impression is cougar/mountain lion/(whatever you what to call it). That impression being based upon the tail to body ratio, tail shape, coloration (both body and tail), and overall body shape/build and posture from the zoomed in photo.

I admit I could be wrong as I'm no biologist, but based on what I see that critter looks more feline than canine I'm not even sure I can think of any dog breeds with a tail shaped like that and that sort of tail length to body ratio, much less any (native to the US) wild members of the canine family.

Again I could be wrong, but to me it looks like a blurry shot of one of these:

mountain lion black tip tail - Google Search

...if there were any footprints (or other signs/markings) left that would probably help identify this critter.

 

[Fuddy1952]

looks small to me. do you have a picture that's not blown up? i'm guessing bobcat size.

I've seen bobcat...way bigger than a bobcat

 

[Fuddy1952]

I saw a mountain lion or cougar once, too close for comfort. This animal kept it head down, did look up once...definitely canine not a big cat. Face was wolf like. There are a few dogs around that I know. One neighbor has a Husky...it was larger. Everyone's dogs have collers, not this.

 

[MossRoad]

I've seen bobcat...way bigger than a bobcat

For scale, go out there to the exact spot you saw the animal and have a human stand there. Then go back to where you took the picture from and take another few pictures until you get one where the fence and trees are the same size in both the original photo and the one with the human in it. Then superimpose then over each other and you'll have a good scale as to the size of the animal to the human at the same spot.

I've used this technique a few times after seeing it on an investigative TV show. Guy swore he photographed a panther. Scale photo with human superimposed over original showed it was house cat sized.

 

[/pine]

Curious...did you notice how it moved? cats move much differently than canines...did it sort of slink or did it lope?