Why do you think coyotes are often portrayed as sly and crafty?

Well, because they are. I live on an old farm in the Missouri Ozarks, about five miles outside of a town with a population of about 1,000 people. I hear coyotes in the timber every night. Sometimes I'll hear them howling three or four times in a single night, in different areas of the woods. I've taught my dog not to respond to them when she hears them, because many times, coyotes will lure domestic dogs into the woods, attack them, kill them, disembowel them, and then just leave them to rot. They don't even eat the dogs they kill, but dogs are seen by coyotes as competition, or as some kind of threat. I'm not saying coyotes are "bad" or "evil" --- they're an important part of the ecosystem, and we should do our best to live in harmony with them --- but they ARE little tricksters.