In which the cryptid should not be confused with the 2018 movie.

I have a soft spot for Michigan - weird, I know - so I was very excited when I saw a cryptid from that state. I got a little less excited when I saw his name was the most unoriginal cryptid title ever, but oh well.

Quick note before we get going: there are two types of dogmen. Only hardcore cryptid fans seem to be aware of this, however, so while I will make the distinction between the two types when I can, for the most part, I will be focusing on the more ambiguous, simple title of "dogman."

TIMELINE

1887 - first sighting

1938 - Robert Fortney is attacked

1950s, 1967 - sightings crop up in Manistee and Allegian County

1987 - the legend gains popularity thanks to a DJ jockey

1993 - Courtney

August 24, 2014 - The Beast of Bray Road is published

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LOCATION

Wexford County, Michigan

Northwest quandrant of the lower peninsula of Michigan (the mitten part, for those of you not familiar with Michigan's layout)

Paris, Michican

Manistee, Michigan

Allegian County, Michigan

Denton, Montana

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DESCRIPTION

K-9 Type Dogman

Named by the host of the Dogman Encounters website, this form of the cryptid has one key distinction - its back legs are in the shape of a canine's. For you anatomy freaks, that means K-9 Dogmen have hocks and stifle joints and all that fun stuff. Some features continually mentioned are oversized heads (rude, but okay), hyena- or werewolf-like appearances, or large timber wolves. (Timber wolves are already huge so it's safe to assume that this bad boy is very large.)

K-9 Dogmen are reported more frequently and are also noted to be much more aggressive than the other type of dogmen.

One man went out of his way to report that the creature has a "human rump," so just think about that for a little bit. (I'm so sorry.)

Type-3 Dogmen

I have no idea why this type is called "Type-3" when there are only two types. Just another cryptid quirk, I guess.

The fun thing about Type-3 dogmen is, again, their legs. They have human legs, my guys. Which is arguably so much more horrifying than having canine legs. See the meme for an artist's absolutely beautiful renditioning of a Type-3 Dogman.

Apparently, it gets really heated in the cryptid community over whether or not these things should be called dogmen. I mean, aside from dog-like features, they really aren't dogs in any form of the word. Well, neither are K-9 Types, I guess...those are more like wolfmen...or hyenamen...speaking of, hyenas are terrifying. I was watching this National Geographic thing and those suckers are big. This guy fed one right out of the palm of his hand, what a lunatic.

I digress.

There are a few things keeping this type of dogman away from the ape categorization given to the Sasquatch, though - namely the claws on their hands and feet and their sharp post-canines (I assume this means the teeth behind your canines because any other definition would be dumb).

The host of the Dogman Encounters website poo-poohs on the people who claim that this type of dogman is a sort of baboon on the sole distinction that baboons are monkeys, monkeys have tails, and Type-3 Dogmen don't have tails.

Guys, come on. You believe in a seven-foot-tall, scarily ripped monster with a dog-like face and supernatural abilities. And you're going to draw the line of ridiculousness at the lack of a tail?

Geez.

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FIRST SIGHTING

The first-ever recorded sighting of the dogman was in 1887, when two lumberjacks saw a weird creature they described as having the body of a man and the head of a dog - hence the super-creative name.

That's...about it. They spotted the canine, reported it, and called it a day. Not a ton of websites recognize this as the first true sighting but the websites that do are run by hardcore cryptid fans, so I'll go ahead and believe them on this one.

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FOLLOWING SIGHTINGS

1938, 1950s, 1967

In 1938, Robert Fortney was walking in Paris, Michigan when he was attacked by five dogs. He later reported that one of those dogs walked on two legs. Similar reports cropped up in the 50s from Allegan County and then again in 1967, primarily in Manistee and Cross Village.

I like this cryptid now. We've established that he's social and has friends. Even if, you know. He tries to eat people. Not cool, dogman.

DISK JOCKEY

A disk jockey for the radio station WTCM-FM recorded a song about the various sightings that had been reported of the dogman. He recorded it in 1987 - exactly one hundred years after the first sighting! He credited the keyboard-backed song to Bob Farley and began receiving calls from listeners reporting their own sightings. It also became the most-requested song from that radio station.

This upstanding dude also sold the song for $4 a cassette tape (hah, cassette tape) and donated all the proceeds to an animal shelter. What a guy! What an absolute upstanding citizen! Everyone, go record a cryptid song and make a lot of animal-shelter money from it.

The song would be re-recorded in 1997 to accommodate new sightings and once more in 2007 with a mandolin background because this man is cultured.

I listened to it and it's actually...a good...song? Like, he doesn't sing, just sort of rhythmically talks, but the background music is actually pretty solid. All in all, I'm impressed with our favorite disk jockey. Whose name is Steve Cook, by the way. (Only one article that I read recognizes him by name, which I frankly think is rude.)

One article quotes Cook as saying he didn't know about the legend of the dogman before writing the song, but I call BS. In the song, direct references are made to some of the most famous dogman sightings, including the very first sighting way back in 1887. Also, in the same article, they go on to list the references that the song makes to sightings...so they basically contradict the supposed direct quote. Bad journalism at its finest, people!

COURTNEY THE ASPIRING SMOKER

13-year-old Courtney was sneaking a smoke behind her parent's house in 1993 (so classy). She was looking out over the snow-covered landscape when she saw something glint in an abandoned barn.

Fun fact about me - I love abandoned barns. Almost an unhealthy amount, actually. If I'm ever found dead, just assume it's because I was exploring an abandoned barn and it collapsed on my dumbass head.

Moving on.

The "glint" was caused by something moving in front of the sun shining through the cracking boards of the barn. So...super terrifying. She watched the spot for several minutes before the thing turned to her and she saw that the mystery creature was a dog-like monster - aka, the dogman!

Another fun fact about me - looking at something for a long time only to realize there's something living there freaks me out. Especially if it's anything even remotely human. Urg.

MONTANA'S IN ON IT??

In 2018, a farmer shot a wolf that got too close to his livestock - a perfectly legal course of action in Montana's state borders. However, key features about the so-called wolf were wrong, pointing to the fact that the creature wasn't a wolf at all. Specifically, certain teeth were too short, the ears were shaped wrong, the coat was "wrong" (that's all they say about it), and the claws were too long.

They determined that the creature was a young female canine, but that's as far as wildlife officials got without the DNA test results back. Of course, people jumped on that right away, proclaiming that the creature was the fabled dogman. Seeing as sightings have spread all over the midwest, this isn't actually out of the realms of possibility. Given that your realms of possibility include a hideous man-dog hybrid.

(Spoiler alert, guys: the DNA's back and it's a gray wolf. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble.)

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POSSIBLE HISTORICAL SOURCE

CHEYENNE WARRIOR

The Cheyenne Indians claimed that the dogman was a spirit of a warrior who was murdered by the U.S. military.

According to their legend, the creature reappears once per decade before disappearing again, but if all the sightings are to be believed, this thing is seen a lot more than that.

PREHISTORIC WOLF

The "scientific explanation" for the dogman is that it is a prehistoric wolf. I'm gonna go off for a second because I really, really hate it when people try to involve science (or "science") in cryptozoology.

Do people think that prehistoric animals were immortal unless killed? Because for the dogman we're seeing now to exist, those prehistoric wolves would need to have an entire community in northern Michigan, and since sightings have been reported in other areas, that means that there would need to be tons of these things just living in the Midwest. But supposedly we've only ever seen the one, or the handful of them depending on whether or not you think it's the same creature.

Everyone owns everything. The government owns whatever land we don't. Do you honestly think they'd be completely clueless to a population of prehistoric wolves living in North America?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

Stop dragging poor prehistoric creatures into your cryptid theories, please and thank you!

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MAJOR MEDIA APPEARANCES

The Beast of Bray Road

Linda S. Godfrey wrote a book about the Beast of Bray Road (remember him?) and referenced the 1967 Manistee sightings of the dogman. She compared the two cryptids, but specifically the Manistee sighting to the general concept of the Beast of Bray Road.

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MEME

Is this a disturbingly sexual Deviantart OC? A sixteen-year-old Tumblr user's fursona? The world will never know...

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FURTHER READING

dogmanencounters.com (go to /about-dogmen/ for info on them and a cool audio recording)

Search "The Legend of Dogman Song" on YouTube and the first version should show up

"13 Darkly Fascinating Stories of the Michigan Dogman"

cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Michigan_Dogman

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