A Lost Dog Situation

Their Dogs Kept Coming Up Missing!

Frank and Gina H. moved into their home built along the edge of the Mark Twain National Forest in the great state of Missouri in the year 1999. They have a small farm where they raise several farm animals and they have lost some of those animals over the past twenty-five years but most of all they have lost their guard dogs.

Frank and Gina started out with just a family dog when they first moved onto the property. They had a mutt they had rescued and that had been with them from the start of the summer, about three months when it came up missing. There was no warning. No odd animal sounds. Just the dog didn’t come back one day. Frank joked it had felt the winter coming on and had headed south.

A couple weeks later Frank brought home a half German Shepard and half something else, obviously the second half was a smaller dog as this mutt was smaller in size than the average full-blooded German Shepard. Casey was with the family until the following summer when he too, disappeared toward the end of the summer.

At this point Frank and Gina had been there for a year and had gotten an idea of what things were like. They were completely unaware that perhaps something was lurking in the national forest that hugged their property. The second disappearance was strange, definitely disheartening as they had become much more attached to the second dog since it was with them for much longer.

Frank and Gina let the winter pass before they found another dog to call their own. It was perhaps not full-blooded collie but it was certainly leaning heavy on the collie genes in it. They were never sure what other breeds might be involved but the collie could have passed for Lassie’s sister according to the couple. Lassie was also with them to the end of that summer.

There was never any sign of anything nefarious having happened to any of the dogs but after the third one came up missing the couple began to suspect it was more than just the dogs deciding to go south for the winter.

They didn’t get another dog for a couple of years. By that point in time Frank was doing well at his job and they had decided to pursue children. So they put the idea of a four-legged friend on hold for a while.

Two years later after having tried the entire span, the couple found out that they would never have children unless they chose to adopt, something neither of them was ready to do.

To help ease the painful news, Frank went out and got them what was suppose to be a German Shepard that had an eighth of Grey Wolf in it. The dog looked like a wolf and according to Gina, Leo had a snout longer than any dog of that species and that he could eat an entire can of dog food in one bite. Which he did on a daily basis.

They got Leo in the fall and he was a little over two years when he too, disappeared at the end of the summer. Leo had survived an entire year longer than the other dogs. Perhaps because he was bigger. He did have a big, long snout which meant he had teeth that were much more suited for inflicting wounds to animals with thick hides, even sasquatch.

The couple didn’t get another dog for a couple more years. Even then the pooch showed up one day at their door covered in ticks and full of fleas looking like it had been on some kind of journey to have reached their place. Pixie was a part Beagle, part maybe hound dog, because she was larger than the average Beagle but looked mostly like one with the exception of a bigger, slightly longer body.

Pixie was very vocal once she adopted the place as her own. She may have arrived shivering, and not from the cold, as mentioned covered in ticks and fleas, so she had been through some pretty serious ground, most likely the national forest. Neither the couple nor the vet knew for sure how old Pixie was, but best guess was that she was about two or three years old when she arrived. Pixie was with them for almost ten years.

The entire ten years Pixie was very vocal but never was she so hyper as when the end of summer came around. Despite her excited state she was never wanting to go more than a few steps away from the house during that time. She acted like there was something just beyond the yard waiting in the forest.

The road that went past the property was gravel and seldom traveled. One day while out getting the mail Frank looked down and saw a big print. All he could make out was the back half of it so the chances of identifying the print were nearly impossible. It was the end of August when he saw the print.

Nothing happened that year but two years later was when they lost Pixie. It is possible that Pixie just left this world on her own terms. Frank said she was uncommon smart especially when it came to showing common sense which is what made it possible for her to live as long as she lasted.

However it is also possible that she was taken. Once again the dog was there one minute and just never showed up again.

The couple had another mutt show up on their door one day. Stinky was a half yellow lab and half pitbull female that was overweight and stunk to high heaven. She was with the couple up until recently when this time around a blood trail was found.

Frank wasn’t sure it was Stinky but she was missing as there was a blood trail which he picked up about a football field away from the house. It followed a trail which existed and was likely very popular with the local deer and other smaller wild life. This time however Frank had an idea whatever had made the blood trail was much bigger than a deer.

He found tracks which were never clear and mostly he could only find the back part of the print. The times he was able to see the front part of the print it was really confusing. He saw two prints and one had claws while the other did not appear to have any.

It wasn’t until he found the remains of Stinky that he was able to figure out that he had been not so much wrong, as he was misled. Better said, he had been fooled.

Yes he was seeing tracks but they were of two separate animals and shockingly the second animal was being very careful to step only where the first animal had been stepping. Both creatures were being careful not to leave a full print. Both were showing a surprising intelligence in hiding their true identity by only walking on the back of their feet.

Perhaps more shocking than all that was the fact that they were both bipedal. He was tracking an animal that was walking on two feet that was tracking an animal that was walking on two feet. The two prints he was able to find that showed any clue as to the front of the tracks were both suggesting that the feet were big, but what he was pretty sure was making the first print was leaving claw prints. Claw prints very similar to what a wolf would leave, but obviously the feet were bigger.

The creature making the print which seemed to be over the first set of tracks, appeared to lack the claws, but its feet were slightly bigger in width and likely length as well.

It was the end of the summer and finding his dog or what was left of it had taken a lot of the desire to do any tracking right out of Frank. Add in he was thirsty and it seemed that the conclusion to this hunt was still a long way off so in the end he decided to give up and go back home.

Both Frank and Gina would like to have known what was involved but that was how things ended. Frank said that to be completely honest he became more afraid than angry after finding their dog and some might say he chickened out while others might say he came to his senses but he did start giving much more thought to the fact that what he was hunting was also walking on two feet which was enough of a thing out of the norm to cause him to decide to give up his desire for revenge.

Having time to think about what they had lost, what little could be done about it at that point, and what could lay ahead if he did manage to catch up with the two parties that had stayed ahead of him the entire time he had been on the hunt; was enough to merit ending the chase.

That happened just a couple years back. Frank and Gina haven’t lost any further animals but the reason is because they haven’t had any more dogs.

Giving thought as to what it was that killed their dogs when taking into consideration the tracks that Frank followed, it has a few possibilities though there is only one which adds up completely but only if you can believe such creatures exist.

What has been taking their dogs over the years has a couple of possibilities though the tracks Frank followed lean heavily more toward one possibility than the others.

1. The most obvious possibility is that it is a human being, probably a neighbor but possibly someone who migrates through the area at the end of the summers. There is no argument that human beings exist, which adds the most credibility to this choice.
2. The culprit is the rare black bear which still lives in an area where they have long thought to have been gone. This goes a long way toward explaining at least one set of the tracks Frank was following that day. Black bears are known to be preparing for hibernation with the coming of winter which means they are eating whatever they can get their paws on in order to bulk up for the long sleep. Therefore it is quite possible a rare black bear was feasting on their dogs through the years. Perhaps a generation of black bear came and went several times over and each one was taught to fatten up on the dogs found at Frank and Gina’s home.

What works against that idea is that it would seem likely that Frank and Gina would have become aware of a bear over the years. Bears are loud, and they leave easy to find prints where they go. It seems unlikely that even if there was one bear which was careful about not leaving tracks that there would be a generation or several generations which would be that careful.

It was a pair of sasquatch and the tracks which had the claws were either a mistake on my part (remember there was only the one) or perhaps the sasquatch made it to look like they had claws though this is less-likely than number 3.

It was a dogman that was leading the way and behind it was a sasquatch, hunting it.