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Subject: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: Daenerys posted Sat, May 14 2005, 11:17pm  If anyone has read The Beast of Bray Road, there is reference to the "michigan dogman". Before that, I never heard anything about it. One encounter(I think, I don't quite remember what the text in the book said)said that the dogman stood up on its hindlegs and talked to the person who seen it. The dogman was also said to have blood on its mouth. Interesting, that there would be sightings of this. The folklore goes that every seven years the dogman reappers. I tried finding more info about the michigan dogman, but there are very few websites I could find about it. I doubt that this would be a "weredog" or whatever you want to call it. There are wild dogs everywhere throughout the midwest. I live in Illinois, and there's only bigfoot/cougar sightings. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary. If you live in a large suburban area like I do, there's nothing out of the ordinary except the people I live with. Anyway, does anybody have any more info or any websites about the michigan dogman? Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: tales_of_the_crypto posted Sun, May 15 2005, 7:27am  dogman! The Michigan Dog Man excerpted from "The Beast of Bray Road" by Linda Godfrey Michigan may be known for its wolverines, but far stranger and more terrifying beasts roam its deep forests. The Dog Man, as he has come to be known, has terrorized all those who have encountered him in the state's northernost logging camps and woods. The Dog Man existed only as backwoods folklore until 1987 when Traverse City radio deejay Steve Cook, wrote a song he called The Legend, with lyrics pulled straight from the tales of dogman encounters. Drawing made by winner of a radio contest for best drawing of the Michigan Dog Man, provided by Steve Cook " I've always been a folklore collector," Cook told me in a 1992 phone interview. He first played his ballad on April Fool's Day, 1987, on WTCM radio in Traverse City and was not prepared for the reaction. People who had had their own close encounters with the dogman got the shakes when they heard Cook's song. Then they picked up their phones. "People were calling in and saying, 'Where did that song come from? My dad saw this thing,' " said Cook. The song began spreading to other Michigan stations, and local newspapers expanded the story. Here are the lyrics to Steve Cook's (a.k.a. Bob Farley) original The Legend, The Legend by Steve Cook A cool summer mornin' in early June is when the legend began,....At a nameless logging camp in Wexford County where the Manistee River ran. ....Eleven lumberjacks near the Garland Swamp found an animal they thought was a dog. ....In a playful mood they chased it around ...'til it ran inside a hollow log..... A logger named Johnson grabbed him a stick and poked around inside... Then the thing let out an unearthly scream and came out ...and stood upright. ...None of those men ever said very much about whatever happened then. ....They just packed up their belongings and left that night and were never heard from again. It was ten years later in '97 when a farmer near Buckley was found... Slumped over his plow, his heart had stopped. There were dog tracks all around. ...Seven years past the turn of the century they say a crazy old widow had a dream ....of dogs that circled her house at night. They walked like men and screamed.... In 1917 a sheriff who was out a walkin' ...Found a driverless wagon and tracks in the dust like wolves had been a stalkin'.... Near the roadside a four-horse team lay dead with their eyes open wide.... When the vet finished up his examination he said it looked like they died of fright... In '37 a schooner captain said several crew members had reported... a pack of wild dogs roaming Bowers Harbor. His story was never recorded.... In '57 a man of the cloth found claw marks on an old church door... The newspaper said they were made by a dog. He'd a had to stood seven foot four.... In '67 a van load of hippies told a park ranger named Quinlan... they'd been awakened in the night by a scratch at the winda... there was a dog-man looking' in and grinnin.' In '77 there were screams in the night near the village of Bellaire... Could have been a bobcat, could have been the wind. Nobody looked up there...Then in the summer of '87, near Luther it happened again.... At a cabin in the woods it looked like maybe someone had tried to break in...There were cuts in the door that could only have been made by very sharp teeth and claws...He didn't wear shoes cause he didn't have feet; he walked on just two paws... So far this spring no stories have appeared. Have the dogmen gone away? Have they disappeared?... Soon enough I guess we'll know cause summer is almost here.... And in this decade called the 80s, the 7th year is here.... And somewhere in the northwoods darkness a creature walks upright And the best advice you may ever get... Is don't go out at night... Sightings and stories of the dog man "Fear gripped Robert Fortney as he shot and killed one of five dogs that lunged at him as he stood on the banks of the Muskegon River in 1938," wrote Sheila Wissner in the Record-Eagle on April 25, 1987. "But fear escalated to cold terror as the only dog that didn't run off reared up on its hind legs and stared at Fortney with slanted, evil eyes and the hint of a grin." Wissner said the man from Cadillac, Michigan, found himself recalling that traumatic incident when he listened to "The Legend." Fortney's encounter took place near Paris, Mecosta County, which lies about halfway between Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay. Although Fortney said he "wouldn't want to call it a dogman," neither did he know WHAT to call the black canid that fearlessly locked eyeballs with him. An ending to the tale wasn't reported, but evidently the creature and the human finally backed off from one another, since Fortney lived to tell the tale some forty-nine years later. Wissner also interviewed a history buff from Manistee County, Michigan, which borders Lake Michigan in the northern third of the state. The "buff," Clarence Gillispie, had collected several stories of dogman sightings in that county. Gillispie told Wissner that he heard one story from an old lumberman who had gotten it from two friends of his. Gillispie was able to record the gist of their story. They had been fishing near Manistee on Claybank Lake one day just as the sun was setting, when an animal swimming toward their boat caught their attention. Taking it to be a coon hound that one of them owned, they ignored it until it got close. It was at that point the two men realized that the "swimmer" had a dog's head and a man's body! The men, very frightened, did the natural thing and began to row away. Fast. But to escape, they first had to emulate former President Jimmy Carter's famous "club the swimming rabbit" maneuver (Carter was also in a boat when "attacked" by a dripping cottontail near the end of his term...who knew rabbits could swim?) and whop the creature a few times with an oar. Like Carter, they managed to keep it from climbing into the boat with them, and made their escape. The reporter did contact one of these men but he would not talk to her about it, insisting that he didn't know what it was he saw, and that he "didn't want to go into it." In the weeks that followed April Fool's Day, Cook's song became the most requested title on WTCM radio, bested only by the immortal Ray Stevens Hit, "Would Jesus Wear a Rollex on His TV Show?" Cook said he chose to use the word "dogman" instead of "wolfman" because it sounded more familiar and "homey." Other dogman sightings occurred in Manistee County and Luther, a small town in northern Michigan.woods of Newspapers around the country picked up the story. Paul Harvey spoke of the Michigan Dog-Man in his news and comments, and people from as far away as Germany clamored for copies of the song. Back in Luther, bartender Cavender told Mencarelli that although a few brave people drove out to the town of Baldwin, they later confessed they were too frightened to leave their cars. Theater of the Mind "Simulated Werewolf Hunt Amazes, Angers Listeners," growled headlines in The Grand Rapids Press February 16, 1992. Reporter Ruth Butler called it "an exercise in theater of the mind" when WCUZ disk jockey Ron Bailey took listeners on an imaginary hunt for werewolves. The odd thing is that the hunt was inspired not by the Michigan Dogman, but by Wisconsin's Beast of Bray Road! Bailey had read the Associated Press accounts of Walworth County¹s creature, and immediately requested a radio field trip to Wisconsin. Denied travel permission, Bailey did the next best thing and enlisted the Grand Rapids Radio Players who helped ³flesh out² a story. The group did their broadcast from a park outside Grand Rapids, while pretending to be just outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin. They invented a slew of characters including a skeptical veterinarian, a teacher who was attacked after school, a thirteen-year old girl, and an Elkhorn restaurant owner whose main quote was "the sightings are the biggest thing around here since girl's basketball in Œ88." The players added sound effects such as crunching snow and snapping twigs, while exclaiming over sights such as mauled, dead deer and glimpses of dark things running through the woods. People began calling the radio station immediately after the ruse was admitted. Some had believed they were hearing a true, live account and felt both disturbed and betrayed. Others compared it to Orson Welles' 1939 War of the Worlds broadcast, when Welles pretended to be reporting a Martian invasion, said Butler. The Dog Man lives on. A quote from one of the men who investigated the canine break-in at the cabin near Luther was added to the beginning of a new version of The Legend released on CD the year the creature was prophesied to return, 1997. Cook later said that almost simultaneously with the CD's release, strange coincidences began. In Kingsley, Ellsworth, Gaylord and Cross Village, said Cook, farmers began reporting numbers of small livestock snatched and "gone missing" overnight. In 2002, the station issued another CD, this time of their annual broadcast of spooky Halloween stories called The Haunting of Northwest Michigan. This was their fifteenth anniversary edition, and it contained five stories. The first was an expanded version of The Legend, and the other four were well-told ghost tales that were revealed as fiction at the end of the CD. However, the cut containing The Legend was declared to be entirely true Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: Gerry Bacon posted Sun, May 22 2005, 6:28pm  All I know is that I've lived here for 50 years now. Know where most of those places are. Been to some. I remember UFO flaps, bigfoot sightings and cougar sightings. Heard ghost stories and poltergeist stories and I'm sure a few lies I was drunk enough to listen to. But I've never heard anything about the Michigan Dogman. Not one whisper. Gerry Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: Daenerys posted Mon, May 23 2005, 4:28pm  I think the michigan dogman legend comes from Saginaw Bay, but I'm not so sure. I don't really remember in what part of Michigan it's in. I wish we had one of these creeping around the Chicago area! Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: SnoChoJoe posted Fri, Aug 5 2005, 11:40pm  Could this be the creature referred to as the dogman? http://www.monsterhunter.us/beastof7chutes Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: swampmaster posted Sat, Nov 19 2005, 1:44pm  Lived in Michigan all my life and I've never heard of the dogman either. The only response I can muster is that LSD is a peculiar drug. Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: bigrob posted Tue, Feb 14 2006, 10:34am  Sounds like something you might hear about after a fith of Ten High Bourbon. Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: Sherry posted Sun, Oct 30 2005, 6:08pm  Can you tell me where I can get a copy of this CD. I have been search for info on the Dog man for years. We were camping at Driftwood in Irons, Mi and heard this on the radio years ago. I have tried e-mailing radio stations up north and have not been able to find anything until now. I would appreciate any info. Thanks, Sherry Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: noideawhatnametouse posted Sun, Dec 18 2005, 12:25pm  I, too, have lived in Michigan my whole life, and I can tell you, I'm intimitely familiar with the Saginaw Bay. Never heard anything about this. Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: Dr. Fong posted Sun, Feb 12 2006, 4:06pm  I have this song available for a short time on my website. It took me a very long time to find and was hand ripped from the cd by a friend of mine. Enjoy! Dr. Fong's House Of Mysteries If for some reason the link is expired plase let me know and I can repost it. Fong Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: wolf82 posted Mon, Aug 14 2006, 9:20am  Dr Fong -- the link is expired -- can you please, please repost it? Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: harry posted Sat, Feb 16 2008, 11:44am  my fiancee's grandfather owns land not too far from the swamp that some say the wolfman hangs out. i'm not from wexford county.. i'm from iosco county off of the ausable river. and an avid angler and out doors man i have seen some weird stuff. When i was hiking the ausable in the summer of 1999. in the counties oscoda alcona and iosco. i remember one of my most scariest encounters with the wilderness. while walking east down along the river around 1 hr. prior to dusk i heard what to my ears to be a wolf howl.. I Have seen wolf prints and seen wolves at my home at 5375 south branch road long lake mi. 48743. but never have i heard a howl so deep and almost humanlike in my life.. I got spooked and set up camp and made a fire. larger than most. due to my fear.. At dusk I heard it closer. directly across the river. I had heard stories of the wolfman from native powows and in family folk lore covering the whole usa. But never have i personally seen what i saw that night or the next day. that night after eating beef barley stew from my canned good collection. i laid down by the fire with my huge folding knife closely gripped by my chest. I was watching and listening to the surrounding woodline for about 30 minutes. when the average noises stopped. which to me meant 2 things 1: something had spooked the local animals. and 2: made me very uneasy. I looked out away from the fire and shot the fire away from my eyes using the un armed hand. I looked across the river which was only about 100meters across from my fire. and saw the most unnerving sight ever. on the sand was a creature standing maybe larger than the average sow black bear, with black fur, large long skull and yellow reflecting eyes like the wolf.. I closed my eyes and hoped i was imagining things and then it gave out the howl again. i opened my eyes and it ran up the bank and dissapeared into the night. as it ran it didn't run on all fours like a bear nor a wolf. and unlike the local bigfoot it wasn't full upright like a human or primate.. I was soo scared that i slept the rest of that night in a damn tree about20 foot off the ground. it took me 3 hrs and praying to easy my fear so i could sleep.. the next morning i woke up and crossed down stream and hiked back to where i saw the werefolf or dogman. there in the bank i saw wolf prints about the size of a bear an adults paw... there were not any group of fours like if you were tracking a wolf or coyote. there were on the other hand a line of tracks separated by at least on yard apart between each paw print. and the paw print unlike that of a canine was not straightly imprinted into the sand.. the print was angled into the sand as if it where balancing around 200 pounds of body weight on that single paw.. i wish i had a camera with flash that night prior and for that day. to capture some proof of what i saw... as a child my friend and i while living in macomb county in memphis michigan while hiking in the memphis youth center farm land in richmond town ship tracked a similar set of tracks... a few years prior in 96. we tracked it for 4 miles to a farm where a lady had found her chicken pen torn to shreds and many chickens shreaded. none of us ever mentioned these before. for fear of being called crazy. but just like many after hearing the song about wexford county and the incident at the luther cabin. only has solidified my belief. I am a strong christain and i believe in angels and demons. and the oddities that we are more occasionaly seeing. Ask the indians, and the french decendants who lived in the region. many have seen or heard such things over the many years.. though bigfoot is more believable, I agree... But this is an occuring thing all over the mid south and midwest... my mom and i have seen bigfoot while berry picking in the woods between south branch road and liberty trail and wickert roads there is a river that flows into a lake there. and there is a great big huckle berry patch there. .. we thought it was a bear at first but as it came over the fire break we knew we weren't looking at a bear. so as to being a skeptic about both of these things i can't porve either of what i heard nor saw but. i never camp with out a fire arm anymore. Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: sydthekidismybff posted Tue, Mar 25 2008, 5:00am  I really don't know much about the Dogman, but I know a few things about him. I know that he was in a circus, and when they were on the way to the place the were going to, he was on a train, they had a tip. The train flipped over and the Dogman got out and ran away. He comes to anyone who is outside in 7 years. My dad was telling me about him around the campfire. Luckliy, we were camping next to our house. After he told us about him, nobody wanted to sleep in the camper. Later that night, we saw two huge, glowing yellow eyes. Dad told us to go in the house. EVerybody did. The next day, we found tracks all over our driveway. On the bench we were sitting at, the was a piece of Haunted House wood and a yellow neckless. The scary part is that haunted house is right next to ours. We have never seen him ever since..... Subject: what i know about the dogman From: maniaci posted Wed, Aug 19 2009, 12:45am  my family has a cabin in Luther Michigan, and i spent a lot of time there as a child. i can tell you that Luther is supposedly where the dogman stories have origanated from, i remember going into town for supplies while hunting up there and they had all kinds of cheesy dogman souvenirs, sometimes we would run into other hunters while out setting up tree stands or just looking over our property and they would always joke and say look out for the dogman, we always laughed about this and went on our way, me and my father always took these dogman rumors as just a local joke, until one night when we were up there we decided to go to the local watering hole, somebody happend upon the subject of the dogman and to say the least we heard some pretty chilling first hand accounts. dont exactly remember all the details of the stories i heard but i know they all sent chills down my spine. i have never personally experienced anything but now when i am up at our familys cabin i get the feeling like i am being watched and i am always looking behind me. Subject: Re: Anything about the Michigan Dogman From: dogmanbeliever posted Tue, Aug 18 2009, 8:20pm  I've lived in Michigan all my life, and I've heard about the Dog-Man since I was little, there arent many sites, you are right about that, however a site that caught my attention is Michigan Dogman Hunters It's a group of people who are in Michigan who want to prove or dis-prove the Dog-Man.

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