The reason I say chihuahua is because:

1) The ears and long skinny tail. and

2) Notice the size of the grass blades in relation to the body.

The reason the limbs look totally uneven is the photographer took the pic at an angle from the back corner.

On a funny note though, when I first saw it, “Kangaroo” popped into my head, lol.

Lumberjack that is fairly easy. Because no self respecting journalist or news station would have run these kinds of stories several years ago. We are now into tabloid news, journalists are getting lazy and they look for titillating items that gain ratings. The phenomenon of odd looking animals in the woods has always been around. Forty plus years in the woods, you do see these kinds of things though they are rare. I’ve found dead dessicated dogs, coyotes, foxes and other animals that I could have claimed as “monsters” they looked so strange. But I simply would have been a laughingstock. Now this stuff can you get you 15 minutes of Youtube fame. That’s the other part of the equation going on. Also I think people are looking for the unknown, looking for mystery, a little excitement in their lives. It is a diversion from a lot of bad news we hear and the generally safe and antiseptic lives many people lead. Communications are instant and three or four of these animals a year gets put on the Internet and one gets the impression these things are new or are becoming fairly common. Misperception.

As far as “knowledgeable people” goes, I wish I had a dollar for every “rattlesnake” that I dealt with and $1000 for the “cougar” that turned out to be a red fox. In all these cases, the observer positively “knew what they saw” and “looked it up in the wildlife guide”. Only about 9 out of 10 times they were wrong.

Are there unknown animals out there? Never say never. I think the oceans particularly will yield some surprisingly large unknown animals yet and maybe even the remote rain forests of the globe. (But those are diminishing every day and with it the chances of discovering any large unknown animals) Some animals are showing up in areas where they have been absent for 100+ years (bears, alligators, mountain lions and wolves)

The wide variety of domestic dogs is literally endless and mix some of those odd combinations with coyotes and you do get odd looking critters. Let one be dead on the side of a road for awhile and its appearance really becomes “other worldly”. In that sense, these animals may be cryptids. But the canids as Chupas thing is just a bunch of media hype, filler for the local paper and news anchors. It’s getting silly.

However, having personally seen mange like this, and knowing what the animal looked like before mange, and what it looked like after the severe mange; I can understand why Jason might say this. But I know personally (though you do not have to take my word for it) that animals look completely different without fur/hair. And the vets around here, wouldn’t make a big deal out of the animal in the picture above.

I have seen and read, that corpses, like these, have all been attributed (after DNA) to mangy coyotes. So the three cases that I have followed, turned out to be mangy coyotes. Odds are in my favor that this one too is a mangy canid.

However, if DNA proves me wrong, I will be the first one to admit that I jumped to a conclusion.

I mean no disrespect to anyone but think about it for a moment before you all go down the typical path.

I’ve never seen a completely bald, uneven limbed coyote before. It could well be one. But I do still find it odd that several people have now spotted strange dog like animals with no fur and odd sized legs. And none of them seem to think they’re coyotes.

How hard is that to see? A DNA test would clear it right up.

I am amazed at the lack of common sense being portrayed. Granted I do not know what ‘breed’ of canid it is. But it is a canid.
Which, by the way, looks nothing like the drawing of the Chupacabra.

*twitches*