r/dogman Aug 19 '23

List of Hoaxes, Fraudsters, and Debunked Media

118 Upvotes

Hello r/dogman. We've recently had an influx of old content that's been debunked making the rounds again, and frankly, I'm tired of explaining it over and over, so I figured it was time to put together a sticky that I will be updating with debunked content and hoaxes. Big thanks to u/arngfunction for collecting a lot of this data for me.

Debunked Media

Gable Film
Onaway Photo
"Dogman behind trees"
Merrilyn Museum
Viral Dogman Footage
"Dogman hit by car"
"Dogman over child"
"Werewolf in the Snow"
Streetlight Dogman
Dead/Injured Dogman

Hoaxers
Sasquatch Ontario
Jeff Nadolny- known to post debunked and obviously false media (including an Onion article), credibly accused of hoaxing himself
NvTv- known to post debunked and obviously false media
Lobisomem- “true” videos they post are stolen from this man

Vic Cundiff/Dogman Encounters- does not properly vet any of his guests. Many are obviously lying, and since Vic doesn’t filter those out, all other stories are brought into question.

This post will be updated as I find debunked media, so check back every once in a while if you see something that looks a bit fishy. And feel free to comment in links to proof that other dogman content are hoaxes. The worst thing for this community is the spread of false information that can be easily remedied.


r/dogman Aug 23 '23

How to Identify a Hoax

69 Upvotes

The Difference between Believing and Being Gullible

Alright everyone, I think this post has been a long time coming. Not only have I seen an uptick in people posting obviously fake media thinking it's real, but I keep seeing people talking about stuff that is clearly a hoax and believing it. There’s a thin line between being open-minded and being gullible, and I think a lot of you really need a post like this to help you understand the difference. It’s going to sound harsh, but the lack of critical thinking shown sometimes is astonishing, and it sucks to see someone falling for something so blatant. Moreover, getting sucked into baseless conspiracies is how people get scammed out of their money or roped into hate groups. Think of all the old people you’ve heard of getting scammed over the phone, or the pipeline from Covid denial to more serious alt-right BS.
So the best way in my opinion to explain all this is by example. I’m going to use some well known hoaxes and one that people still tend to believe to hopefully give you the skills to better spot when someone is trying to trick you. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s embarrassing to get duped, and it makes you want to dig in your heels and get defensive, but sometimes you need to take a good hard look at claims being made and explore all the evidence (or lack thereof) to really decide if you believe it. There’s no shame in being wrong, I’ve been tricked by hoaxes too, but now that I have the skills to recognize them, I don’t have to worry about that as much. Obviously you’re not going to be able to spot every single thing, but at the very least you won’t be embarrassed falling for a bad photoshop job.

Breaking down media

A lot of hoaxes are really obvious, but it doesn’t stop people from falling for them. Hell, Merrilyn Museum SAYS it's an art project and people still think it’s real. Sometimes though, all you need is to know what to look for and you can immediately start spotting them a mile away.

The first thing to think about is a costume. Does the face LOOK like a painted Halloween mask? Then it probably is. Like most of these tips, experience is really the only way to learn. I can’t explain to you what I’m looking for to think something is a costume, I just know at this point. It also helps that I work in entertainment production, so I’m around a lot of costumes. But I don’t think that would make it any harder for anyone else. Usually, you can tell when something is synthetic. Fake fur or a morphsuit tends to have a shine to it that real fur or skin doesn’t, so if you’re noticing that in a Bigfoot or Crawler video, it’s probably that. Another thing to look for is the movement and body proportions. You’ll see lots of videos of cryptids moving in ways that just don’t make sense. Take a look at this video. Notice how it's taking big trudging steps and holding its arms out as if to balance itself? There are plenty of videos like this, where the creature is too wobbly or clearly struggling with the terrain. This doesn’t match up with the reports that Bigfoot practically glides over difficult terrain nor the common sense that a wild animal that lives in the woods should have an easy time navigating it.
I also want to take a quick moment to talk about masks. As I already said, if it looks like a mask it probably is, but another big giveaway is shine and uniformity. Here’s a perfect example from our friend Sasquatch Ontario, who we’ll talk about again later. Now looking at this, these are quite obviously masks, yet people still believe it for whatever reason. So let’s break it down for those people. Firstly, the faces are both identical, look at the forehead creases. Second, look at those soulless shining eyes, not like any eyes you’d actually see in nature. Finally, you can see some black fabric he put either to hide the edges of the masks or to hold them up there. Also of note is that while it is all black, you can tell pretty easily there’s nothing behind the fence through the holes. You should be able to see a slight difference in the same way you see the difference for the masks.

Next let’s think about CGI. Like costumes, a lot of it is just experience and knowing what to look for. In particularly bad CGI, it's obvious: the lighting is all wrong and it just looks out of place, or the movement of the creature doesn’t make any sense. However, with AI out there, CGI is harder to catch than ever, but with a trained eye you can still see it. Typically, the shading will be wrong and that’s how you can tell. Think about where the light is coming from in the photo. Then look at the creature’s shadows and its outline. If they don’t match up, that’s CGI.
Finally, the humble photoshop, tricking gullible people since 1990. Basically the same rules as CGI, check the shadows. Most of the time, you can easily tell it doesn’t belong. Another obvious tell is when the pose of the creature doesn’t make sense. Take a look at this photo.

First, notice the shading. The light source is coming from the left, yet the right facing side of this creature has just as much lighting as anywhere else. Could be another light source behind him though, so let’s move on. Next you might think to yourself that it just doesn’t seem to fit on the background correctly. It’s weirdly fuzzy around the edges and the coloration seems strange. Next, take a look at the pose. Nobody just stands there like that facing a lamppost. Now maybe it's in motion and that’s why it’s so off. If that’s the case, then why is it just letting the cameraman take a photo as it walks by without tearing him apart? Fortunately, we have the actual source for this image, it’s concept art from one of the Narnia movies. We won’t always get this lucky, but with this source image we can start to paint a really good picture of how it was hoaxed. In this case, they flipped it, added some kind of color filter to it, and then blurred it a bit to hide what makes it obviously art.

There are plenty of other ways to hoax a video, but these are the most prominent, and the logic still applies. Essentially, if it looks out of place, put some healthy doubt into it and look closer.
Something else to help debunk a claim is to look at the context and the filming itself. Be on the lookout for common found footage horror tropes. “Alone in the woods and heard weird sounds so I started recording”, “There was something following me home” etc etc. Sometimes people give really flimsy reasons for turning on the camera, and that should instill doubt. Obviously it's not a perfect system, but it should set you on alert to check for any other suspicious circumstances. Sasquatch Ontario just happened to be taking a picture of two towels on a fence (already unbelievable) and there were 2 sasquatch there? Think about how ridiculous that sounds. This sort of logic can also be applied to written encounters. Obviously, encountering a cryptid that officially doesn’t exist is already “unbelievable” but then consider the other details, such as that Sasquatch comes by their house every day yet they have no pictures, that they raised a baby Dogman from a puppy, stuff like that. If the premise of the story sounds too good to be true, that’s usually another hint it is. Usually liars who just want internet points are going to make their stories more outlandish or impressive.. A story about a guy who shot a dogman and then got harassed by the government is going to get a lot more attention than one about a guy who saw a dogman walking across the road in the dark. Or think about where the cameraman is standing. Refer to the picture above and think about how the cameraman seems to just be standing in the middle of the road taking a picture of this giant monster werewolf. Seems weird that it’s just standing there while this guy in plain view is able to get a picture, right?
Another dead giveaway is the “Point the camera at a thing for a split second and immediately wave the camera all around” thing. Of course, if you come face to face with something supernatural you’re going to be terrified so that seems completely normal. However, once you’re looking for it you can really tell when it's being overdone and forced.

Evidence Evidence Evidence

Something I cannot stress enough is that if someone is going to make an unbelievable, earth-shattering claim they need to provide evidence for it. You should not just believe something someone on the internet says at face value, especially if it's something outlandish. I’m going to be completely honest, it is downright stupid to put your full faith in someone because they “sound trustworthy”. If I tell you that I know about a super secret government operation where the US government works with werewolves in order to find the hidden treasures of Atlantis before the vampires do, I’m going to be embarrassed for you if you don’t ask me for evidence. Let’s use Sasquatch Ontario as an example again. This guy claims there’s a whole advanced civilization of Sasquatch that he’s friends with that is being covered up by the government, and they occasionally write him notes and let him take pictures to give to the people piecemeal. Now, to give him some credit, he DOES attempt to give evidence for this in the form of images of said Sasquatches (see above). However, that’s the only evidence he gives, a handful of low effort pictures and the occasional bad audio recording. But he never gives any evidence of this coverup or this civilization. Why should we just take his word for it? Especially when everything else he gives us is so suspicious?
Here’s another example: Joe Barger, the trucker who claims that he shot and killed a dogman . He then goes on to say that once he initially went public, the feds arrested him and intimidated him for killing their “asset” and harassed him in several other ways. He said they froze his bank accounts. Cool, so you can provide us with the paperwork to prove that right? That would be something you could easily prove, yet he never did.
Here’s a more generic one, not tied to anyone in particular that I can tell.

It sure is asserting a lot of facts without anything to back it up. “There are twelve species of Bigfoot in the US alone”? “Bigfoot has psychic powers”? “Bigfoot and Chupacabra work together to hunt their prey”? That’s some wild claims, yet there’s not a single citation here. Another reason now to trust this, besides the crazy claims, is that they seemingly KNOW Bigfoot have psychic powers, but they aren’t certain they bury their dead. Really?
I could list a million other examples, but hopefully you guys get the point. If someone is going to make a big claim, they need to back it up. “The government is covering up XYZ”. Okay, where’s your proof that this is true? “I was raised to be a secret black ops agent to talk to aliens”. Alright, show us something that confirms that. “I babysat for a Bigfoot family for years”. Awesome, so you have pictures of the babies then? It boils down to critical thinking. If someone is going to try to tell you everything you know about the universe is wrong, they need to back that up. If you don’t see the problem, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

I Want To Believe
I want to leave you all off with one final idea. It’s okay to believe in the supernatural. You could absolutely read this and think that I think you’re a moron for believing in aliens or Bigfoot or whatever but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. 99% of the time you’re just going to hear a story about a guy who claims he saw Bigfoot while camping, and it’s fine to take what he says at face value. If you want to be more discerning in who you believe, apply these concepts. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter if Reddit-Noob-69 is telling the truth. If you believe in Bigfoot, the veracity of that account doesn’t matter. Knowing if a story is true or not can help if you want to try to “solve” what a cryptid is or otherwise learn about the supernatural, but it’s not necessary. Where it IS important to figure out fact from fiction is when people are trying to sell you on media or some new worldview. If you just believe everything you see, you’re going to look like a fool at best, and get scammed out of your money at worst. It’s easy to want to believe in some silly hollow earth conspiracy theory or that there’s a secret alien council ruling the world to escape our shitty everyday lives, but that kind of thing can really bite you in the ass when push comes to shove and you have to use critical thinking for something that really matters.


r/dogman 9h ago

Question To anyone who have seen them, which of these is accurate to your sighting?

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46 Upvotes

r/dogman 5h ago

Photo Vic Cundiff fan art

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7 Upvotes

My friend drew this Vic Cundiff fan art what do y'all think?


r/dogman 15h ago

Amongst my people

17 Upvotes

This is my first ever Reddit post but I just wanted to say I’m glad this is such an active subreddit, I’ve been obsessed with werewolves since I was a kid and now I can’t get enough dogman stories. Also I’m glad other people are skeptical about Martin groves because I get the vibe he embellishes a lot of stuff however the Vic slander took me by surprise because I thought he was like the end all be all dogman guy but now I’m not so sure lmao anyways like the title says it’s feels good to be amongst my people 🐺🤙🏻


r/dogman 1d ago

Photo Love this book.

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75 Upvotes

Lyle Blackburn is a great storyteller and teller of facts and incidents is such an accessible and magical way


r/dogman 2d ago

Question Can anyone tell me what Vic is on about?

27 Upvotes

I know that people have their own opinions about Vic. I have my own thoughts about the guy, and I'm not trying to start any kinda flame war. But, I was wondering if someone might know about a detail that Vic seems obsessed with.

So, I was listening to one of his recent episodes. I can't remember what number, but he had this Sheriff guy on, who Vic's apparently had on a couple of times, and dude was talking about things like finding a dogman pup on a grape vine, or shooting one in his friend's barn that very morning.

Vic asked him if there was something that stood out, or caught his guest off guard, about the dogman's mouth, when he got a good look at it. Thing is, I've been listening to Vic, off and on, for about seven years now? Maybe longer. Used to catch every episode, but for the past couple of years, not so much. The first time I remember him asking, he said that he wasn't at liberty to say, but there was something odd about their mouths, and asked that guest if anything stood out. At first, and in subsequent times, I thought that Vic asking this was a bit, so he could add some intrigue to his episodes, or trying to drag his guests along.

Maybe it could still be a bit; I'm not certain. Sometimes, hell give a little information up. Like, with this guest, Vic said it wasn't the teeth, but something else. With how long he's been asking this, and how specific this detail is, I'm now wondering is this is more of a fixation of his, and if so, why?

I've heard some different suggestions" rows of teeth, barbed tongues, forked tongues. To me, these seem a bit too fantastical to fit. Like snakes have forked tongues, because it's a large way that they perceive the world around them. Sharks have rows of teeth to help them shred, and to serve as replacements. Geese have barbed tongues, because they hate you, and everything else that moves. These are also just common horror tropes, and I'm not certain why a canine would have use for them, let alone one with hands. Each time he's asked, Vic hasn't ever given anything up, but sometimes his tone of voice shifts, and you can get the impression that wasnt the answer he was looking for.

So, does anyone one know what Vic might be one about?

I'm very much a skeptic, but I like listening to people talk. Sometimes there's a conviction in the way they speak that leads me to think they at least believe they encountered something. It sounds different from someone when they're reciting a story to you. In this instance, I'm not certain if it's worth it to litigate someone's credibility since the purpose is to propose, or possibly answer why Vic is obsessed with Dogman mouths.


r/dogman 3d ago

Story Just a little story, I know barely anything about form my mom

41 Upvotes

My mom is long dead now so I can’t get anymore context, but it really interests me. we are in the lower part of the Appalachian mountains. or at least near it. At this time my mom and her brother were up on a hill next to the forest. There was trailers around because her brother lived up there she said something about her brother running inside to tell her that there was a “tall dog on two legs” out there she never believed him until she randomly brought it up in a conversation that I was listening to and she said something about it being a possibility I can’t get any more context from both of them because my mom died of cancer and her brother overdosed. Her brother did have some history with drugs so I’m still kind of skeptical. also, this is in Ohio not Michigan. just a little story I would like to send to u debaters tell me if I made any spelling mistakes. It’s kind of late and I’m running off fumes lmao


r/dogman 6d ago

While Walking The Dog By Your Favorite Area Of Woods, Off In The Distance You Are Caught By Surprise And Notice What Appears To Resemble A Possible Dogman That Has Fallen Through The Ice In A Pond..Desperately Struggling To Survive...Try To Save It...Or Reluctantly Phone For Help?

18 Upvotes

r/dogman 10d ago

Hey looking for first hand witnesses.. Open to anyone's story specifically around benzie and Manistee

14 Upvotes

r/dogman 11d ago

Question Remote viewing dogman?

4 Upvotes

I’m still not fully convinced on remote viewing although it’s certainly interesting. The only two possibilities of this I have found are Metaphysical podcast which said it’s not recommended to remote view them, because reasons. And the other option is cryptid Huntress which I find unlistenable. She always seems to interject and make it about herself at every moment I’m about to get hooked. Maybe I’m not giving enough of a chance but it’s a tough listen.
On the other hand, the Metaphysical guys are easy to listen to but they didn’t go in depth on it really. Or enough to satiate me lol. Thoughts? Any other places? Cheers and thanks for reading.


r/dogman 13d ago

Question Does anyone know what the beef between Josh Taylor and Vic Cundiff is about?

42 Upvotes

I've listened to Dogman Encounters for years, much less now because I feel the content just isn't as good as it used to be. I also listened to Paranormal Roundtable whenever they put out a condensed version of their shows relating to dogman, but find it difficult to listen to for other reasons.

A few times whilst listening to PRT, Josh Taylor has either indirectly or openly criticized Vic Cundiff even though Josh got his start coming on to DE and narrating encounters that he had collected.

Does anyone know what the beef is about? I don't think I've heard Vic even mention Josh or PRT, maybe taking the higher road, but it's something that I've always wondered.


r/dogman 12d ago

Just out of curiosity, has anybody ever wondered...since this dogman creature is obviously a hybrid of sorts, would that potentially be assumed the same for it's internal organs Half and half of whatever the heck this thing is?!

0 Upvotes

r/dogman 13d ago

Story New possible tip? How the Jonaldplayn Dogmen walk, gait patterns and tracking it's distinct run for identification.

13 Upvotes

Copied from new submission to my hidden submissions box at Cowling Park in London, Ohio, USA

"Hello, Hazel, finally found your little thing. Accidentally found a geocache first, nice!

I have something I'd like to add to your wealth of knowledge for your dogman research. The local regional dogman found mostly in Southwest Central Ohio has been seen as far South as Madison, Florida and as far North as London, Ontario, Canada but, this subspecies of dogman is normally found frequenting the Jonaldplayn (Jonathan Alder's Plains) which contain the Darby Prairie and Mad River Valley Prairie Fen ecosystems. It is in this particular region of Ohio that the type of dogman we are seeing is most commonly sighted. There are likely other kinds of dogmen. Our population of interest runs by bending those high-ankles or backwards-knees they have until they touch the ground. They run on their haunches. When they're running on their two back limbs, the bottom of their feet touch the ground but also the back of their leg does from their feet all the way to that joint. I hope you understand what I'm talking about, I know you call it doglegs or hock-jointed dog-like legs. That's the reason their tracks are so long and narrow, being two feet long. A lot of what you're seeing is their legs, not the only their feet are in their footprints. Also, you insist they have human-like clawed feet with five toes. They are a bit different from humans and raccoons. Keith Williams said your giant, raccoon-like tracks were mostly accurate but that what he saw only had four toes, not 5 forward-facing digits.

Please keep doing your research. This type of dogman that only reaches 48 to 72 miles per hour that you're looking into, it's a bit different from the faster dogmen other people encounter. By comparing stories, I think we've got a slower type of dogmen. It's been called Madison County Dogman, Madison Plains Dogman, Darby Plains Dogman, Mad River Valley Dogman, Lügãrü, and Weyiwaya. I think we should just call it Jonaldplayn Dogman.

Also, check for it in Cedar Bog Nature Preserve. People're definitely seeing something there.

Signed,

Curly Dogman Enthusiast."


r/dogman 13d ago

Truth or cover?

0 Upvotes

I believe in Dogman but check this out https://youtu.be/MBb_nSvFrZk?is=6NvmUXFxEIXVlVnh


r/dogman 17d ago

Vic Cundiff Voice Modulation?

36 Upvotes

Title…do you think Vic’s voice is the real deal or is it altered somehow? I’m aware that he screens people prior to the show, and some people have said he sounds the same when he’s not recording. But even then, he could still be using a modulator over the phone, right? His inflections on certain words are so strange. But also, he’s been doing this since around 2015 - way before AI voices were as good as they are now. The mystery of Vic is almost as big as the mystery of Dogman. His presence (or lack thereof) makes listening to DE that much more compelling. Thoughts?


r/dogman 17d ago

Hoax Lobison en Brasil. Randomly found on fb.

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233 Upvotes

What seems like a possible dogman in a Brasilian neighborhood. Looks late at night judging by the lighting. The movement seems sus and could be a mask but I've seen other videos where they look similar to this. Plus the ears seem to be twitching.


r/dogman 17d ago

Is Dogman Perhaps A Type Of Hybrid Involving Man/Wolf...Wolf/Alien... Man/Alien...Or An Unknown Species Of Its Own.

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9 Upvotes

r/dogman 18d ago

Photo For the Shaniqua legacy video

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103 Upvotes

There was this video years ago of a Facebook live of a man that saw a dog man and posted about it. It is the most convincing evidence that we have yet Many people tried to “debunk” it and say it’s smoke or an emu but they don’t even look at the pictures he took before the incident and posted on Facebook. How can you explain that? This is not a fucking ostrich/ emu or smoke. This is absolutely real and that guy is the most convincing evidence we have.


r/dogman 18d ago

Picture 4th of July gift 🎁 if you have an open mind

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148 Upvotes

Y’all can dismiss the evidence or censor the post, but without elaboration that won’t be effort spent well if this gets nixed, but hey — here are a handful of pics that look like the dogman we met when I was kid.

Does this accord with anyone else’s experiences?


r/dogman 18d ago

An interesting depiction of Dogman and comparing them

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81 Upvotes

I found this on the instagram page @danchudzinskistudio this is a very interesting depiction of the creature. I wonder if some people have seen this brown version versus the jet black Anubis type. The other picture is from a video from The InBetween YouTube channel. The last picture bares a striking resemblance to Racoons. What do you guys think?

Edit
I meant to say compare the last two pictures I know the last one is a Raccoon.


r/dogman 18d ago

Looking for witnesses

9 Upvotes

I want to look for them, now I know that’s stupid but I want to know if they’re real and how they react to a non threatening situation if they’re an animal and have animal like behaviour, I also want to know how human they are as I’ve seen people say they have a human stare as if they’ve got a similar intelligence and also want to know if anyone knows of how the stories of werewolves came to be as I could imagine that these are what they’d call that back then, and where the shapeshifting thing came from, I’ve never experienced anything with them but I’m really interested and curious about them and I know my area in the uk could be considered a hotspot but I’ve only heard one story

If anyone can reach out and inform me on any new sitings or findings from them that would be great or even know areas of recent sitings in the uk


r/dogman 20d ago

Question Let's be honest.. Do you believe...

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421 Upvotes

r/dogman 19d ago

Sighting werewolf encounter

46 Upvotes

(edit: responses or explanations wanted)
this august coming will be three years since me, my cousin and some friends witnessed something pretty scary and to this day unexplained, we still think and talk about it a lot purely due to how eerie the instance was so i felt like posting here might give some answers or maybe even just a space to get it our into the world lol

every summer my family, cousins and a few family friends travel to a rural place in Co Kerry right beside the coast. without giving away our houses exact location it’s surrounded by forested mountains and cliffs in a bay area. it’s pretty rural and the village we stay in has two pubs ,one petrol station, a church and a beach cafe and that’s pretty much all the amenities around. farming and fishing are both massive in the area so there’s plenty of those people. the farmers in the area usually have , mountain sheep or goats because they are the only breed that can withstand the weather and steep heights the hills get to. my cousins house is pretty far up the road into a shrubby dense mountain and their neighbours own a large farm beside them their home being right beside my cousins, their shed being about 50 foot away another smaller tractor shed being 50 ish feet from that with field space in between behind the tractor shed is a dense forest, there is also a few derelict houses that have been abandoned for a while near them . my cousins always have an end of summer barbecue with all our friends and family and it’s usually a really fun time. three years ago august my cousins had their barbecue early because the weather was nicer then it would have been later that month.

that night , me, my cousin, my sister and our friend went for a walk along a steep dirt road that was used by farmers to go up further into the mountains, it’s beside my cousins house and we usually walk up just a bit to get a good view of the bay on clear days but this time it was pretty dark probably around nautical twilight so we had just enough visibility before it was complete dark. (it’s worth noting that this was on the 6th of august 2023 and just a few days before we had both a blue and Super moon) while we were walking along the path we looked to our right, we had a view of the neighbours two sheds and we could see a completely black figure crawling along the ground on all fours unnaturally fast, it stood midway through moving on its two hind legs and bolted as fast as possible into the forest area behind the tractor shed, we immediately ran down as fast as we could the hill road and back to my cousins house where i left my sister back with our friend who was older as my sister was pretty young at the time, while me and my cousin walked cautiously back to the area where we spotted the creature, at this time it was near,y completely dark so we knew we couldn’t stay for long but as we waited and stared into the spot where it was originally we noticed two yellow slitted dog like eyes staring directly at us, we ran down and haven’t been back since.

this has been something we have talked about a lot the last year or two since it happened because there was no way what we saw was human yet it wasn’t quite animal either, we have been calling it the wolfman and i’d love others input


r/dogman 21d ago

Question Do Dogmen display typical canine behaviors ever like panting or barking?

29 Upvotes

For people who have said to see them, do they ever display canine behaviors like panting or barking? Or wagging their tail if they even have one? Genuinely curious if they have canine traits beyond just their appearance