Through DNA analysis, scientists have established that the wolf is the ancestor of the dog. Dogs and wolves are so closely related that DNA analysis cannot distinguish a wolf from a dog or a wolfdog hybrid. Coyotes, however can be distinguished from wolves and dogs through DNA analysis.
Scientists can identify a coywolf from a coyote and a wolf, and a coydog from a coyote and a dog.
Wolves, coyotes and dogs are social creatures. Wolves form extended family groups consisting of the male and female, their young, and juveniles from the previous year's litter. They have a complex social hierarchy that allows for cooperative living, hunting, and defense of territory with minimal social stress, and still maintains temperament differences among individual pack members. Coyotes had long been thought to be loners, living on their own except during breeding season. Recent research in Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere, however, has shown that coyotes, where they are not hunted by man, live in social groups like wolves.