Other Animal (But Non-Buggy) Crackers

Previous legend || Other Animal (But Non-Buggy) Crackers || Next legend

Exploding Varmints

In Dispute: Trapper ties dynamite to a coyote and releases it; the coyote runs under his car/house.

There are a lot of variants of this story, including an elaborate one about a dog trained to retrieve thrown objects and an expensive car parked on the ice in the middle of a lake. Another relative is the (believed-true) story of the WWII-era Soviet army using dogs as mobile antitank mines. Other versions involve rabbits, raccoons, fish, cats...This version of the story is discussed as "The Coyote's Revenge" in Brunvand, The Choking Doberman, and the general family is traced to a common ancestral motif in The Mexican Pet.

Tb: In WW2, Russians fed dogs under tanks, then released them in battle with anti-tank explosives having an antenna-like trigger on their backs.Dogs ran under wrong ones, German tanks didn't smell like Russian tanks. Most Russian tanks were diesel, most German ones weren't.German high command counters by spreading rabies rumors, encouraging soldiers to shoot every dog they see.

References:

• http://tafkac.org/animals/dog_dynamite.html