Yes, some of them do have non-standing ears, and odd coloring, too. About 25-30 years ago, there was a fad of sorts here in the hill country, with people deliberately breeding German Shepherds, Huskies, Malamutes and such to pet coyotes they weren’t even supposed to have and selling the pups, but the fines for that got a little high after awhile.
The game wardens say that these hybrids have become more common here, while the coyote/red wolf hybrids are more common elsewhere. There haven’t been many wolves in Texas for a very, very long time, but there are plenty of coyotes.
The human imagination is a marvelous thing-some people south of here insisted for years they had seen chupacabras-although I doubt they know what one looks like, if it does exist-but they turned out to be dog/coyote hybrids-I thought they looked more like hyenas than any chupacabra I’d heard of ...
People are still selling coyote/dogs for pets, as stupid as that may be.
I really think you just have generic feral dogs running amok.
That’s more common than you’d imagine, even in suburban areas so Texas would be paradise for them, no doubt.
As far as “Red Wolves” go
http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/canirufu.htm
They were thought to be extinct but some were found and bred in captivity and the pups released in the Carolinas.
Apparently they are no longer in Texas.