Your True Tales
March 2004 – Page 2

Devil Dog
by TF

In the summer of 2001, I was going to a local "quickie mart" at about midnight or a little earlier. Upon turning a corner in a well-lit area about 1/2 block from the quickie mart, my headlights caught two glowing red eyes in the weeds across from a business parking lot. I really like animals so I slowed down to get a look, but the eyes were too far away and the animal turned its head and I could no longer see it. So I went on my way to the quickie mart.

After I left, I was going quite slowly, thinking the animal might still be around and I wanted to see what it was. Then - OH, MY GOD! - it was right there on the passenger side of the road no more than 10 feet from my car, walking under the streetlight! I stopped the car and it stopped and looked at me, eyes reflecting red in my lights. At first I thought it was a dog. It looked to be about the size of a small Chow - I'd say between 25 and 35 lbs. It was shaggy like a Chow, but the way it walked was very weird: it kinda made jumps like a rabbit does when it is exploring a yard in no hurry - only backward. The front legs were way too long for its back legs and it slouched like a hyena. Then I noticed its tail was like a possum tail, long and fleshy with segments like a possum's.

I watched it for at least 45 seconds as it moved into someone's wooded backyard and disappeared from sight. I hurried home and told my at-the-time girlfriend and she wanted to go out and look for it, so we grabbed a camera and looked for about half an hour and did not see it again.

Then about a month later, we were at my family's cabin outside of Hayward, Wisconsin, and my uncle, out of nowhere, looked dreamily out the window and said, "Ya know, I saw the strangest animal yesterday." I asked him to describe it and he described "devil dog " perfectly, except no talk of the glowing red eyes, as he saw it in the middle of the afternoon. Only he thought his was bigger than mine by at least 10 lbs. My girlfriend then said, "Let's go out and look for it or its tracks or something." My uncle said no because it wasn't natural and he wanted no part of it. So we went outside and looked for tracks and found what looked like dog tracks in the area that my uncle saw it, but he has a dog, so that meant nothing.

Then we went into the woods a little way and found a dead raccoon, torn to shreds, still pretty fresh. My girlfriend said, "This is too creepy. Let's get inside." The raccoon was quite large. I'm thinking only a wolf or a bear could have killed it... or a "Devil Dog." So I agreed we should go inside as it was getting to be dusk.

That night we heard growling and squealing noises coming from the direction of the raccoon, but very close to the cabin. From the screened porch we lit a portable search light and, sure enough, there was the devil dog, red eyes blaring, looking right at the light. He quickly scurried off into the trees and we never saw it again. My girlfriend will not go back to the cabin until my uncle shoots it. In the two years after, I never saw it near my home in Minnesota again, and my uncle has yet to see the one up north either. I have attached a quick sketch of how it appeared.

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