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03/08/05
- KLTV
7
What
kind of animal is this?
"Looks
like a hyena or a greyhound, a messed up dog,
ohh a horrible dog," says TJC Student
Lyndon Gilford.
A
man in Harrison County snapped this picture a
few days ago. We showed it to you on a recent
news cast and hundreds of you logged online to
tell us what you thought it was. Answers
varied, everything from a Peruvian hairless
dog, to a naked fox, to an Australian dingo.
Today, we got a similar reaction when we
showed passersby the picture.
"I
would say a cross between a jackal and a grey
hound," said one woman.
"An
ugly animal, I don't know a horse," says
another man.
"It
looks kind of messed up," said yet
another.
Some
of you e-mailed us claiming this animal was
something called "a Chupacabra".
That means "goat sucker". It's a
mythical creature in Puerto Rican folk lore. A
google search revealed pictures of what one
may look like.
James
Wright, a zoonosis vet with the Texas
Department of State Health Services doubts
this animal is a Chupacabra.
"So
if I see this out in the country side I feel
it is a canine and not from outer space,"
says Wright.
He
thinks the animal is a type of dog or coyote
suffering from severe mange.
"Most
probably from demodectic mange," says
James Wright. He says it causes the hair to
fall out very badly.
Wright
says this creature closely resembles one found
in near Lufkin in Angelina County a few months
ago. Experts believe it was a canine with
severe mange. So for Wright the mystery has
been solved, he says, the animal from Harrison
county is a canine, but you can decide for
yourself.
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