Dogman is spotted in Missouri
| Dogman – Missouri sighting I live just west of the Mark Twain National Forest. It is located to the south and east while there is a state park to the south and west of my place. Needless to say there is plenty of forest and wild life surrounding the area. One night towards the middle of October about ten pm we heard a howl unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. My wife was also raised near that area and she was in complete agreement that this was a different sound than the many we had heard before and become somewhat accustomed. We had been washing dishes but we put them aside and listened. Our German Shepard was visibly upset and he kept getting up and going to the door and then he’d kinda whine and come back and sit by me and then he would do the same thing over again. It was quite unnerving combined with that strange howl. Our dog had never acted in such a manner in the entire 6 years we had him. He was afraid. Clearly. That made my wife upset and I wasn’t feeling too good about the situation either. That said, I had a rifle and shotgun and a good sized dog. I felt we were ready for whatever was to come at us. The howling stopped after about fifteen minutes and I went outside to have a look around staying within the boundary of the light provided from a pole that I have next to the driveway which has the old basketball goal still hanging from it. The air was crisp as October nights are apt to be in our parts. I could actually see my breath and in the distance you could see the fog rising from the little streams and spots that still held water from a recent rain we had. Then I caught an odor that is never mistaken once you have encountered it. It was the stench of something dead. We used to have a pit bull that was a tenacious hunter. When she would get sprayed by a skunk we would give her tomato juice baths mixed with shampoo, anything that smelled good to try and hide the stink of the skunk spray. Once we would finally get her to stop smelling she would bolt out the door and half an hour later show up stinking like something dead. That was a thousand times worse than the skunk, so I know a dead smell when I encounter it. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there was no noise. No crickets, no bullfrogs calling for mates from up at the pond. It was surreal. I backed up all the way to the house despite whether it made me look like a lunatic. I went inside and didn’t say anything to the missus but she must have seen something was wrong in my face because I had to convince her that there was nothing going on outside and she had just misjudged the look on my face. it was getting time to go to sleep so we made sure the house was locked up tight and settled into our bed with Franky, our dog, at the end of the bed. He had settled down for the most part but his ears stayed perked and his head would turn like he was following something and then he’d turn his head the complete other direction like something was circling the house. This was freaking my wife out so I called the dog over to the door and opened it to let him out and he did go out. As soon as he got outside his ears went to full attention and his tail was kept down low. This had been a mistake because it was clear that he wasn’t going to settle down and in fact he had become more on the alert and was barking at something I couldn’t see but made no effort to go forth and seek out whatever had his attention. His tail was down low and a couple of times he started to put his tail between his legs and then he would stop just short of that action. Clearly whatever was out there had the respect of this very healthy and sizeable dog. I went back in and got the shotgun. Seeing me go back outside with the gun my wife grabbed the rifle and stood iin the doorway watching my back. Again I went to the edge of the light and tried to peer into the darkness but I couldn’t see anything but I thought I heard movement. Then I caught whiff of that smell again. I grabbed the dog by its collar and brought him back inside with me. When inside, my wife brought up the awful smell. It scared her more than anything else that had happened that night and I couldn’t blame her. I would have tried to drive her out of there if anything else had happened that night. I already made up my mind that one more howl, or one more time of the dog freaking out and I was getting my wife to safety. That never arrived. There was complete calm the rest of the night and we went to sleep like all was well. The next day I went out and had a look around the house. Sure enough there were tracks. Big tracks. I’m not talking bigfoot big but these were obviously canine in nature but much bigger paws than on any dog I had ever seen. There is considerable growth where the tracks were visible and I looked up to see what had got caught in the overgrowth and there it was: a big tuft of hair or fur hanging from a thorn that was too far above my head to be able to reach it. That set me back for a few seconds because it was obvious that fur got up there because it was torn out of something that tall. I called my son which led to him and his wife coming over and a short while later the missus and my son’s wife were headed to their house. Meanwhile we had no idea if the thing was going to come back that night but we decided to do a little preparing for our new friend or possibly friends, by putting out some trip wires with empty cans on them so they would rattle if something came along. As big as I expected it to be, I didn’t think it would be able to see down to the ground too well in the dark so I placed several pieces of plywood with many nails and screws driven into it along the area where I had seen the tracks from the night before. By t he time late afternoon was welcoming in the night we were fixing some stew that was fished out of the freezer. I always make a big batch of it along with a big batch of chili and we freeze it some in single serving and some in larger amounts. Anyways we were fixing one of the larger freezer bags and definitely were a little bit excited about what the night might bring. Now I will confess I really didn’t expect to have any further trouble from whatever this thing was because we’d done plenty to give it reason to move on and that’s if it even bothered to come back at all. Plus we had lived there for a long time and never had any sort of a similar experience in all that time so it stood to reason that this thing wasn’t going to come back up to the house again especially a second night in a row. I mean honestly I would never have put my son at risk if I thought there was any real danger. I just thought it was a good chance to spend some time with him and it would be exciting . .. you know how it is with the boys. Initially things went as I expected them too. We had a great day together, working to set up our fortress. I had showed my son, Lane, the tracks and was going to show him the fur that I couldn’t reach but it had blown away with the wind at some point earlier so all I could do was point to where it had been and I could see that my son was having a hard time imagining a creature that tall. Understand it wasn’t that he didn’t believe me but just that the claim was that incredible. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I saw the hair myself. And there is no other way I can imagine that got stuck on that thorn unless it was torn out of the animal’s hiye. Seven maybe eight feet in the air. That’s a tall animal. As I said I really didn’t expect trouble and if we did have any well we both had weapons and the dog stayed behind with us so we had that angle for backup. My house has windows but its an old house and the windows in it are those old type that are made up of a bunch of little pieces of glass which is something like four by six inches per pane. Judging by the size indicated with the fur, I doubted one of them could get into our house through the windows even if broke out the glass. They wouldn’t get through it easily any how. Too many wooden panes blocking the way. We weren’t going to have any worries any how. Well things started out smooth enough. We fixed ourselves some stew and chili and finished things off with a big old fashioned doobie (that’s the kind not made with a blunt, there’s no tobacco involved) and managed to get pretty blasted. We sat around for a while just talking and then the munchies set in and I broke out the ben and jerry , each his own pint, and we proceeded to almost make ourselves sick eating so much of something so rich. By then we’d forgotten about the creature. Lane was blaming me for corrupting his schedule, not so much the sleep one but rather for getting him stoned and breaking out the ice cream. I was in mid-defense when the first howl came and it sounded like a howl of pain the way it was so quick and then abruptly stopping and I don’t think the creature had meant to announce itself. I could only assume it had found one of my sheets of plywood with the nails in it. We turned on the second set of outside lights which don’t really illuminate any new spots but it greatly brightens up the area that the lights do cover. That was when the second howl came. This one was long, loud, close-sounding and just flat out sounded mean. Angry. Maybe that was just my imagination but those were the thoughts that came to me as I listened to it threaten us. I got the law on the phone but understand we’re a ways out in the middle of nowhere and when and if the law did ever come, it was gonna be a county sheriff or possibly even a deputy. They were going to listen to our story and then have a look around. I doubt a long look, but they’ll poke around. Then he’ll load up and tell us to quit smoking that shit but if there is any real trouble to call and he’ll come back out. My son was adamant that he was going to stay if I stayed and I wasn’t ready to give up my home because some damn big hairy dog-creature howled outside my door a few times. That said I didn’t want my son hurt and when the law showed up it would probably be the one best opportunity to get out of there. It was both a hard decision and yet truth not a decision at all. The way I look at things is I an turn the other cheek, run if you will, only until I am cornered. Then as the saying goes; any animal will turn and fight when cornered. Well this was my corner in this world. I had no where else to run. So I was turning to fight. Now the dog is darting all over the room with his ears up and he’s got a low growl going on and his body is stiff. Outside we can hear the sound of growls. I was almost certain there was more than one or even two. We would only get a glimpse of them. And only see one at a time but there was no way one could be quick enough to cover the ground necessary to be in the next spot when i would see it again. My son sat on the other side of the house looking outside where the lights were not illuminating what was taking place. The howls and growls continued as I am almost sure they were going around the perimeter of the house and just outside the area the lights were allowing us to see. Then there was the sound of something scratching on the walls and then a pane of glass broke on my side of the room but towards the back of the house from where we were located. Its not a huge house but of course by the time I got to the spot where the glass was broken there was nothing outside the window. All this time the dog is going berserk. Barking at what’s outside and the whole time he kept turning his head around like he was following something I couldn’t see. Then he’d whip around the other way and continue following it. The time passing seemed like hours but in truth I guess it had been just under an hour when the lights from the deputy’s car came shining through the front windows like the calvary in an old black and white, showing up in the nick of time to chase off the savage Indians. The deputy did pretty much what i had predicted. He half-heartedly looked around. Admitted there were a lot of dog tracks around my house. Then he says, you gotta big dog don’t ya? I pointed at the tracks and said not that big! The guy gave me some song and dance about how tracks get enlarged from the time they are made and that was likely what he and I were looking at, was just the enlarged tracks of my own dog. We went back into my house where my son was waiting and I realized I needed to figure out whether I wanted to risk perhaps more than money by staying or I could pack up my son and my dog and get while the getting was good. We could come back in a few nights and see if things hadn’t changed. I won’t lie there was a part of me that wanted to stay and fight but in the end I chose to have the deputy wait while we loaded up. We left there feeling certain that there were eyes watching us go and I hoped the plywood got at least a few of them and left them limping for weeks. My wife and I stayed at my son’s place for several nights and then we went home. Everything was back to normal. The dog showed no signs of anxiety. The night came and went and was completely uneventful. I never got to see what those things really looked like, they were too fast and it was too dark. I will never forget what they sounded like; the howls and growling. The scratching on the outside of the house. That brief outburst of pain which gave away the fact that they had arrived. Thinking of that moment still brings a smile to my face. I didn’t go hunting them. I didn’t make any aggressive moves toward them. They were responsible for this entire skirmish. We simply responded. | |