In folklore, the Michigan Dogman was a creature allegedly witnessed in 1887 in Wexford County, Michigan, United States. It was described as a seven-foot tall, blue-eyed, or amber-eyed bipedal canine-like animal with the torso of a man and a fearsome howl that sounds like a human scream. According to legends, the Michigan Dogman appears in a ten-year cycle that falls on years ending in 7.
This creature was unknown to most of the modern world, until very late in the 20th century. It is said to have been stalking the area around the Manistee River since the days when the Odawa tribes lived there.
The first alleged encounter of the Michigan Dogman occurred in 1887 in Wexford County, when two lumberjacks saw a creature which they described as having a man’s body and a dog’s head.
In 1937 in Paris, Michigan, Robert Fortney was attacked by five wild dogs and said that one of the five walked on two legs.
Reports of similar creatures also came from Allegan County in the 1950s, and in Manistee and Cross Village in 1967
Many believers in the Dogman claim that simply clapping will scare them away.
Holy shit, Wikipedia finally has dark mode!
I swear I saw the dogman one time. Of course, nobody except for one friend believes me. People think I’m nuts when I tell this story.
It was around 2012, and I had finally left after visiting some friends by Ann Arbor for a few weeks. I love the west coast of Michigan and the UP, so I figured I’d head out there a while and maybe go to Sleeping Bear before heading north and back to Wisconsin.
I was in one of the coastal towns there. Not sure which… I don’t think Pentwater or Muskegon. Could be Holland or Ludington? It was after dark and I was a little sleepy. I was driving west and kind of lurched to a stop at a 4 way sign… looked up, there was a cop to my right. Great. I decided to take evasive action and turned north, then east into some neighborhood. I ended up turning north to continue that way and then had to head west back to the main road because there was a river.
I got back to the main road and turned north by some small shops with streetlights. The shops were to my right and to the left, there was a grassy hill leading up towards forest. I saw some sort of animal out of the corner of my eye - looked large and brown, and I thought cool, I’m about to see a badger or a woodchuck or something. But it moved veeeery quickly, and oddly, and looked rather large. I was just, huh, wtf is that? It sort of moved like a human but was low to the ground. So, intrigued, I watched in my rear view after passing. It walked up to the side of the road, and no shit, seriously, it stood up, looking like a humanoid about 5-6 feet tall, hunched over in a gorilla pose with arms hanging down, and then it ran across the road. I was just uh, holy shit.
I had been planning on stopping and sleeping in my car in the woods somewhere, but after that, no fuckin way. I drove for over 2 hours north to somewhere like Leland or Suttons Bay to get the hell out of there.
