Thanks for the article Sleddog.
I agree with Rich pretty much about these study's. I have heard that you can get wolf DNA from a beagle or any other dog breed. From this I would conclude that you could get more wolf DNA from a german sheppard than you could from a german shorthair, and that they are all pretty much related to a wolf to some extent or another. I'm certainly no expert on this subject, but I do know a little bit about coyotes, wolves and their subspecies. In Texas alone there or three distict subspecies of coyotes, and I believe there's something like 15 different subspecies all together. Another good example of how varied a certain subspecies of a certain breed of animal can be, look at the whitetailed deer. There are 17 different subspecies of whitetailed deer in North America. The smallest of which are the keys whitetails of South Florida that weigh about 75#s for an adult male. At the other extreme is the Canadian whitetails that routinely weigh over 300#s. They are all still 100% whitetails, just different subspecies. I believe this is somewhat the case with the coyotes. Coyotes have bred with dogs. This has been proven to happen but the occurance is very rare. As mentioned earlier they are often if not always sterile and thus the hybrid breed is a non issue. This has also been proven with whitetailed deer and mule deer crosses. It sometimes happens but the offspring are sterile. The answer to which the Eastern coyote is a hybrid coyote/wolf or just another subspecies of coyote is one that I am not confident will ever be conclusively answered.
Side note: I was hunting bear with Jay Nistetter on the Eastern edge of Arizona, around Hanagan Meadows. This is where they have an extensive Red Wolf restocking program going on. We were fortunate enough to have one cross the road about 40 yards in front of us. Jay rolled the window down, lip squeeked, he stopped, Jay filmed him for a few seconds and then he left. We would have had some great footage of him if it weren't for the fact that Jay forgot to push the record button. I have killed some huge coyotes in my day and some that looked a lot like wolves, I thought, but when we saw this red wolf there was doubt what it was. His gait was different from a coyote and he carried his tail different than a coyote. Just more food for thought.