Hunting the Dogman

My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy.  This is somewhat understandable; as I often tell her about the existential threat known as “dogman”.  This is pretty much what it sounds like; a bipedal, upright-walking dog creature that probably best resembles the werewolves from “Werewolf” the TV series (it ran in the 80’s, on the USA network).  Usually seen with hands rather than fore-paws, and standing between 6-7 feet tall.

No, I’m not kidding. Yes, this is purely speculative, and quite obviously over the top.  And no, I have no real evidence.  None at all.  However, there have been (apparently) hundreds of sightings in America alone over the last 30 years or so.

Let’s back up to 1990’s.  Linda Godfrey is an artist and reporter for a small newspaper in Wisconsin who decided to report on a rash of REAL LIFE “dogman” sightings occurring in the area.  To quote from her blog:

“To the left is the artwork seen round the world, the original ”kneeling roadkill” sketch I did for The Week, a now defunct newspaper based in Delavan, Wisconsin,Dec. 29 1991. At the time, I considered “The Beast of Bray Road” sort of a throwaway story for a slow news week. But the article  inspired many people to come forward and say they had seen the same thing, and not always recently. Some of the sightings in the Bray Road area were up to ten years earlier, with one possibly related event about 40 miles away in Jefferson County dating back to 1936.“

The “kneeling roadkill” incident (where the dogman was seen by a passing motorist to be squatting down by the roadside, eating a roadkill carcass) appears to be the first sighting that got local media coverage in 1991.  As the subsequent reports and sightings started rolling in from across Wisconsin and surrounding states, the legend was born.  Other sightings, as compiled by Godfrey, are often from people who would be considered to be “credible”.  I.E., people with normal lives and reputations to lose, who aren’t complete kooks.  It’s also often said that people who’ve alleged to have seen such creatures recount their experiences with legitimate terror and dread.  Are people making this shit up?  Who knows.  There is, so far, no real compelling “physical evidence” in the form of pictures, hair samples, etc.  Perhaps because most of the sightings seem to be very brief, from the inside of a moving vehicle, that this isn’t too surprising.  

The theories that try to explain these sightings are all over the place, as you’d expect.  Among the more plausible (assuming people aren’t mis-identifying bears), is the idea that these are genetic experiments, possibly from a government black project, that have escaped or been released.  I suppose “The Island of Dr. Moreau” might not be as far fetched now as it was when it was when it was originally published in 1896.

Currently, there are dozens of YouTube channels dedicated to re-telling and collecting sightings of the dogman.  Godfrey herself has written over 16 books on the subject or similar topics.    It’s interesting that she states this goes back to 1936 in Jefferson county, WI.  So, although this might be a new-ish in the plethora of paranormal phenomena, there is seemingly a historical precedent for all of this.  It makes you wonder how many of the “werewolf sightings” published by the Weekly Word News (and there were many back in the day) might not have been bullshit.