The Confessionals - 335: Dog vs Dogman

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

In Episode 335: Dog vs Dogman, we are joined by Kyle who shares the most dramatic dogman experience ever sent to The Confessionals! Kyle was born and raised in Kentucky, and became a coon hunter at a very young age. When he was 15 years old, he and his grandfather set out for a night of hunting raccoons with their dogs Bow and Jake. Little did Kyle know that on this night, his life was going to change forever. The dogs treed a coon when a pack of coyotes moved in to challenge the hunting dogs. There was a strong battle of dominance, and when Kyle finally arrived at the scene he saw Jake standing strong with coyotes on the run. He then heard what he thought was his dog Bow on the other side of a large tree, chomping on a coyote. But, when he circled around to find Bow, he came face to face with a monstrous beast that towered over him. This is where Kyle's life changed forever, as a bloodthirsty dogman took chase after him, and a battle of dog versus dogman took place! Kyle's story of survival truly defied the odds with those two kinds of dogs in the woods that night - one was man's best friend, the other was man's worst nightmare. BECOME A MEMBER AND GET ADDITIONAL SHOWS: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinSPONSORSGET Hello Fresh: https://hellofresh.com/12tony Promo Code: "12tony" for 12 FREE MEALS!!!GET StoryWorth: https://storyworth.com/confessionalsGET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: https://simplisafe.com/confessionalsGet Emergency Food Supplies: http://www.preparewiththeconfessionals.comGet Beard Oil: https://bit.ly/2FbOhN5CONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] Community: Text "YUP" to 844-215-0819 Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletter SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIDiscord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7h Show Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: merkificationFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcast Twitter: @TConfessionals Tony's Twitter: @tony_merkel SHOW INTRO Show Intro INSTRUMENTAL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyub39AXxUw Show Intro FREE DOWNLOAD: https://bit.ly/2HxNcw3

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It's despired to these hours, waiting to back the price of the coach that you want? Well, deja to expect, and it's a great variety of vehicles that offers Spotikar. More of 6,200 vehicles, of those which, more of 700, are electrics and hybrids,

with even three years of guarantee, and eight years of guarantee, and the battery, and the support of the RedB services official. Spotikar.com. This was all circulating around the base that a giant had been killed,

but no one was supposed to talk about it. I saw three long, bone fingers, reach up underneath the door, curl up to grab it, and then disappear. When he came over to me, dude, he slithered over to me.

And this giant comes out of the cave and they're all frozen. And he starts running and firing at this giant. Well, the giant moves. He's got a spear in one hand and he's running really fast. And spears Dan holds him up like this. Somebody else shoot him in the face. Shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated.

Feel something pulling at my leg. And I look over and there are two small gray entities pulling it. and they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush, and I touch air. Couldn't breathe and I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Yep. Welcome to the show, everybody listening to The Confessionals. I am your host, Tony Merkel.

Thank you for being here. If you've had an encounter or a story you'd like to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. That's The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. or go to the website Theconfessional's podcast.com, hit the contact section,

and you can reach me that way as well. Either it works for me, just get a hold of me. And if you want more shows every week, go to the confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the join button and become a member today because we give an extra show every Thursday on the website for members.

So if you want more of what we do, just go to the confessionalspodcast.com, hit that join button and become that member. Now, this week we have a fantastic show. I've been wanting to put this show out for a while and we finally are here. But before we get into this week's show, I want to let you guys know that we do have that Discord and I know many people were saying the link wasn't working. I fixed the link. So the link that's in the description of this episode is working just fine. You can join the

Discord and please go ahead and follow us on YouTube. Subscribe to the Confessionals on YouTube. The link is in the description because once that channel hits 25,000 subscribers, I'm going to start releasing my journeys. We might be saying, what journeys are you talking about? I'm starting a new video series on YouTube called Chasing Legends, where I go out and I look for lost treasures, ghost towns, monsters of the woods, aliens, UFOs, all the legends that we hear about on this show. I'm actually going to go out now and hunt for these legends. I spent four to five years listening to these legendary stories and it's now time for Tony Merkel to go out and look and find these legends himself. And that's what I'm doing, but I'm not releasing any of the videos until we hit at least 25,000 subscribers.

Once we hit 25,000 subscribers on the YouTube channel, I will release the very first expedition where we went looking for reptilians, but what we found instead was much more interesting to me, historic actually, here in Pennsylvania. And I'm looking forward to sharing that little journey with you guys, and there will be many more to come. In fact, today we have Kyle coming on the show, and Kyle's in Kentucky. And this is going to be an overtime show. He's down in Kentucky, and he has had the most dramatic dog man encounter I have ever heard my entire life. And he's going to go into it for many, many hours with me. This is a whole week of Kyle.

We got today's show. We have the overtime right after this show on the website for members. And then on Thursday, we're going to have more of Kyle's experiences with just the weirdness in Kentucky. That's what we're going to cover on Thursday. But this is so dramatic that I asked Kyle if I could come down to visit him in Kentucky. And he said, yes, he will take me. me to the location where he had this crazy wild experience. He told me that he will not stay out there overnight. He said, I can't if I want to, but he will not do it. Well, I'm down there to film

chasing legends. So what do you think I'm going to do? I'm going to be out there overnight, unless I get too scared. Then maybe I won't be. We'll find out. But I'm going down in October to do filming for that show in Kentucky. Now, let's get to Kyle right after I play a short little trailer teaser of my journey in Pennsylvania, just one of the things we uncovered while we were out there looking for the reptilians. We're going to play this trailer

and make sure that you go to the YouTube channel and hit subscribe, and while you're there, watch the trailer that you're about to hear right now. If you want to look at it, there's like a religious significance to this as well. I wouldn't say people should come here for pilgrimages, but they say that these rocks,

which were all underwater at one time, came up from underneath the water when the continents shifted. And they reference how the continents shift. Some people talk about how it was a great flood that shifted the continents. And so if the continents did shift from a great flood, and this whole rock formation was like a riverbed or an ocean bed that got turned sideways through the tectotonic plate shifting and pushed up, then we literally might be touching and standing next to something that literally was a result of the great flood in the Bible,

which is really cool to think about. All right. Today we got a good show planned for you guys. This is one of those shows where I've been waiting a while to do. Kyle, how you doing, sir? I'm doing good. How are you? Doing fine, man.

I just want to fill the audience in a little bit of, you know, how this all came about because, Kyle, I get a lot of emails from people. about their experiences. And I absolutely love the emails, keep them coming. But your email, one, I don't get a ton of dogman encounter stories. And when I do, it stands out to me because it's a topic that I don't get to talk about a whole lot. And I'm always excited to do so. And the way you wrote your email, it was so captivating. I mean, I'm not even kidding you, man. I'm sitting in my office chair, reading emails and I find myself getting closer and closer and closer to my computer screen as I'm reading it because I was just like, what's going to happen next? Oh my gosh, what's going to happen next? And after I got done reading it, I was thinking, I'm going to text this guy. I got to get him

on the show. And you were one of the first people in such a long time that didn't leave their phone number with the email. I was like, no way. It's like, so I emailed you back. But it's like, Like, you know, who knows if you're ever going to check your email? Some people don't check the emails. Sometimes they forget about it or whatever. I was like, oh, man. And it was a couple of weeks, and then you finally contacted me back. I think you text me. And I was just so happy you got to hold of me. So thanks for being here, man. Yeah, I'm glad I finally got to touch base with you and get on the same track. Yeah, for sure. Because I'm not even kidding you. There's probably not a day that went by that I didn't think about that email. I was thinking, man, I hope I hear from this

guy. So just to fill the audience in here a little bit, you're in Kentucky, and we're going to do, this is going to be an overtime show because you've got a lot of stuff you want to share with people. And this first segment, we're going to really focus in on your personal experiences here for the first hour. We're going to start off with your initiation experience, which is probably the most dramatic experience you've ever had in your life with anything. And then we're going to also be talking about your your dad's experiences, your grandfather's experiences, other relatives like your uncle. And we're going to talk about the area of Kentucky and all the strangeness in the area. You have a lot of information to share with people. And I'm just really excited about because

that's what this show is about. It's about telling stories, but also if people can when they come on, you know, filling the people in as to, especially with your kind of situation, what is the area like in Kentucky? Because right now I had said to you earlier about how Kentucky's really being focused on a lot in the paranormal community with the Hellyer web series. And it's just like, it's really, like I mentioned to you earlier before about Somerset, and you were kind of shocked by that. But there's a lot of people around the country, around the world that are really looking at Kentucky right now saying, what is up with Kentucky? And you're going to be able to provide some more information as to the strangeness, the very strangeness of Kentucky. So

I'm going to hand it over to you, sir. If you could just start walking us through your first experience, what were you doing? What were you doing out there and just take it away, sir? Okay. Well, I grew up in the foothills of eastern Kentucky in the base of Appalachian Mountains and spent the majority of my childhood in the Daniel Boone National Forest. And as you said before, this area is known for a lot of strange occurrences, especially the area I live in.

And it's a very rural area. And like I live atlistics. I'm not close to any cities. You have to go a couple counties over and either you work in the coal mines or 45 minutes an hour, maybe two hours. Go to a big city and work in a factory somewhere if you don't go to military or to college.

and I grew up hunting and fishing. You know, that's what I was taught to do. That's what I enjoy doing as a child. I spent the majority of my childhood with my grandfather, who, you know, around here we call them Mamma and Papa instead of grandma and grandpa. And he taught me the base of my upbringing. You know, I'm a Christian.

I was raised in a Pentecostal family. and I still have strong beliefs in Christianity. I'm not as close to God today as I probably should be, but that's the base of my upbringing. I grew up in the mountains, doing some substance living, hunting and fishing, as I said before, also fur bearer, small game, trapping,

hunting with dogs. my first encounter was actually hunting with dogs. And the reason why I feel compelled to tell my story is to give tribute to my dogs. And I'm a houndsman. You know, we raised different breeds. We had black and tans, walkers, red ticks, red bones, blue tick, English, mountain cur, and even some. Fice, which that's a smaller breed of a hound.

And we use those hounds for squirrel hunting, for rabbit hunting, and for raccoon hunting. My story actually takes place in the Danger Boone Force, a coon hunting. And for those that don't know what coon hunting is, it's raccoon hunting. And it's where you take these hounds, as I said before, and you train them from pups. You train them with, we always try. train dollars with older dogs. You turn them loose and they walk around in the Daniel Boone or the forest, wherever, and they're looking for the scent of raccoon.

And once they find the scent of the raccoon, they start trailing the raccoon. When I say trailing, you know, they're using their nose and they're following the path that the raccoon has previously traveled. And as they follow the path, they let out location bar. letting you know, hey, I found the scent and I'm currently tracking it. That's what they're telling the hunter, their master. And as they track them, the raccoon will most of the time climb a tree someplace. After they get tired of running.

And once they climb the tree someplace, the dog does what's called treeing. They go to the tree that's a raccoon climbed up and they start barking up the tree in that same exact location and not moving where they're at. They just continue to bark the spot letting their masters know, hey, we found it. And they stay in that location until the handler or the master walks in at night because raccoons are nocturnal. They shine the tree. The raccoons in with the light and they shoot the raccoon out and the dog gets it and brings it to you. And then, you know, we do that for, we do that for population control because.

raccoons can carry and transmit more types of diseases than most rodent animals in our area, including rabies. And if you get rabies, it's uncurable to this day. If you get rabies, you'll have to take a shot until the day that you die. So it's for population control. And we were fairbearers. So once we get these raccoons, we would tan their hide, you know, skin them, flesh them, tan their hides. and sell their hides. That's just part of my upbringing.

That's how I was raised. That's an extra side hustle that we had to make money. And you can argue whether it's humane or not, but I mean, it is population control, and it's a important part of maintaining a healthy habitat in national forest. With that being said, let's get into my encounter. My encounter happened.

October 1st, 2003. It was the opening night of coon hunting season in the state of Kentucky. Me and my grandfather were going to go that night. And my grandfather was in poor health. He had heart conditions. He had a heart disease. So he was unable to handle these dogs. I always handled the dogs for him.

I went and got the dogs and put the dogs in the dog box, loaded them up, turned them loose, went back and got them wherever they were in the forest, put them on dog leash, brought them back, put them in the dog box, took care of them. Every one of our dogs were trained with love. We never beat on them or abused them or anything like that. We trained them with love. They were just as much as part of our family as a brother, sister, cousin, uncle, you know.

And as my grandfather called me up and asked him to go hunting with him that night, My mother drove me over and dropped me off on my grandfather's property. And he told me to go get the dogs. The very first dog that I went and got was our young dog. His name was Bo. He was a red tick breed. He was almost solid red, almost. He had a few white specks on him, kind of color like a strawberry wine, beautiful in every way.

And then I went and loaded him up in the dog box by myself. As my grandfather waited, I went back over to work. we keep our dogs out to the kennels. And I grabbed hold of our old dog. I hooked him on dog leash and brought him over to load him up. When I say old, I mean, that was our trained dog, our mature dog. He, his name was old Jake. He was a walker.

That was his breed. He was a tri-colored dog. I mean, he's three different colors. White, black, and tan. He had a white chest, white face, white belly. And it's some black and tricolor, you know, black and some tan spots on his back. And he's a heck of a dog, experienced. An excellent dog had a heck of a nose on him.

He could smell a raccoon that had went through a ditch someplace out in the woods, anywhere from five minutes ago to two or three hours. He was an excellent dog, perfect in every way. He was a giant of a dog for his breed. you know for his breed dogs usually weigh between 70 to maybe 80 pounds of upraise but he's 120 pounds a horse a giant of a dog for his breed he was an excellent kill dog whenever i say kill dog i mean sometimes whenever you go raccoon hunting and you shoot a raccoon out of the tree they don't always come out dead sometimes the dog has to dispose of the animal he was really good at that

He was quick and to the point he would do it humanely as a dog possibly could. And he had several encounters where coyotes would come into him whenever he was treying. And he would fight coyotes on the tree because whenever old Jake got tree in his mind, that was his domain. And anything at all that ever came in there, he would fight tooth and nail to hold the tree that he was on. Because in his mind, he wasn't about to give up that tree to anything because he put in all this hard work and effort to track this raccoon. And as I said, there's coyotes that came in on him and he fought on the tree and killed these coyotes. You know, that's just part of, that's part of nature and it's part of hunting that sometimes unexpected things happen. And on this night, October 1st, 2003, we got a little bit of a late start.

than what we normally do. So back then, there were a lot more coon hunters. And they were already out and about, and we went to the Daniel Boone National Forest because that's where we, I grew up hunting, and that's where we always went. You know, that's the only area that we ever really hunted. And so we went on a six-mile road,

gravel road that leads you into the Danubeon out into the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest. And normally, wouldn't have went in there that far. But because we got the late start, there were already hunters out that night. And we were hunting night because raccoons are nocturnal. And so we took this six-mile road all the way to the very, very end. There's no houses, no markets, no lights.

It's just mother nature, you, your dogs, your vehicle. And as we got out there to the very end of the road, it's a pitch black door. We're next to a cliff. My grandfather stopped the truck. He told me to get out and turn the dogs loose. So I get out, I drop the tailgate down, open up the dog box, turn the dogs loose.

Oh, Jake and Bo, they started over this holler that's right off next to the road. It wasn't very long at all before they picked up a scent track of a raccoon. They start following the raccoon and barking, and they're doing a great job on this track, track job. And Bow's barking right along with him. He's coming along pretty good in his training. He's a young dog, but he's fully grown. He's maturing properly, and they do a heck of a job on it.

The raccoon track crosses the road in front of us, and it goes up on the side of the mountain. The dogs follow it on top of a cliff. and over the back side of the cliff, a good 700 yards away or so. And then old Jake lets off a location bark, letting us know, hey, I found where the raccoon's at. And Bose walking right along with him, doing a pretty good job, you know. Then a few moments later, my grandfather says, hey, you know, they found it. You better get the rifle and head on in there, you know, shoot the raccoon out. and bring the dogs back.

So I said, all right, Papa, you know, I'm 15 years old. I grab the gun out of the back of the truck. It's a 22 long shot and strap it on my back with my backstrap. I take my hunting light. We hunted with these big nightlights that let off tremendous light, almost makes it look like daylight wherever you're walking at because you're shining up, you're shining these trees that are 100 foot tall. sometimes.

So you have to have a really good light. And I take a two-way radio with me. And my papa has a two-way radio with him. He sets at the truck. As I said, he was in poor health and wasn't able to walk far distances. And this is part of my upbringing, you know. So it's all natural to me. And I wouldn't trade it for anything, you know.

And I start walking in there towards the dogs where they're barking at. And I'm doing radio checks with my papa and stuff. we're checking with one another, making sure that we can hear each other and stuff. And then as I'm walking in there and old Jake and Bose in their tree, I hear a pack of coyotes open up in the distance. Pretty good ways off. Pretty good size pack of coyotes. I don't know, seven or eight maybe.

But, I mean, it's a bigger pack than anything that we've ever dealt with. My papal calls me on the radio and says, hey, you hear that pack of coyotes in there. I said, yeah, Papa, I hear them in there. He said, well, better make your way on in there to them. Jake and Bow, that way, if coyotes come around, they'll run off because they're terrified of people here in Kentucky because they've always been hunted hard. There's open season on them because they're a pest animal. So you're open season. You're allowed to kill them on site anytime.

So they're terrified of people. Even at night, if you walk upon one, you shine. kind of flashlight on one. That coyote is going to run with everything it has in it to get away from you. That's just how it is. And any hunters out there can probably contest to this. I'm sure they're probably just as terrified across the United States and in all other locations as they are in Kentucky.

But so I start, you know, I picking my pace a little bit, not rushing myself because I have to walk up a mountain and then on top of a cliff and on the backside of the cliff. So it's a good 700 yards away. And, you know, the coyotes in the distance, they stop, they stop barking. Jake and Bo, so they're still tree in there still, you know, just like nothing's wrong. And then a little bit later on, the pack of coyotes start yipping and hollering and barking again, except this time they're closer. So they're moving towards Jake and Boe because in the,

their mind, they hear Jake and Bo in their tree and they think, hey, this is our meal ticket. There's an animal over here barking, letting us know where he's at. We're going to go in here and eat it. That's essentially what this pack of coyotes was going to do. And once again, my grandfather calls me and says, hey, you know, the pack's getting closer. You need to get in there a little bit, a little bit faster. Let me know, hey, pick up your pace, get in there to the dogs. that way we know our dogs are safe.

And I let him know, hey, okay, I'm heading that way. I'm going to do exactly what you say. So I start picking up a pace even faster. And then it wasn't very long after that, that the pack of coyotes make it to the tree that old Jake and Bow was treying on. And sure enough, the fight breaks out. You can hear it all plainest day.

The fight breaks out. You can hear this pack of coyotes. you know, fighting with our dogs. And they must have grabbed a hold of the bow pretty good because he starts squealing, you know, like letting off his little pup squeal. And you can hear him just barking and squealing through the country, just getting with it like the devil's chasing, just getting out of Dodge, while this pack of coyotes are, you know, the file on him.

But not old Jake. Old Jake stays right there on the tree. And he'd come off and grab hold of them coyotes. whenever he did, using them coyotes letting off death screams, you know, going on crazy because he had jaws like a pit bull. When he locked down on him,

they felt it. He was a killed dog. And he'd come off the tree and fight with those coyotes. And then they'd cower away from him. And whenever they cower away from him, he'd go right back on the tree and start tree. And just like he wasn't even there, just yon, yon, yo, y'all, yo.

Just chopping the tree down with his barks. At least that's what he thought he was doing. Because in his mind, he was a big man on campus, and he done all that work to track their raccoon, and he'd be down before he'd let a pack of coyotes come in and take that tree away from him. And then once again, the dynamic of the fight had changed, and these coyotes had finally mustered up the courage to go in old Jake as a pack,

not one by one as they were doing before. and once they've done that, they actually started hurting him. And you could hear him whimper. And my grandfather called me. It's like, listen, they're going to kill him. You've got to get there. And so I'm just a few yards from him, not really far, but still he's out of my sight. And just a few moments after that, it's like, it's like, it's like Bow came back.

and once again, the dynamic of the fight changed. And you can hear old Jake really putting a hurting on these coves. They're squealing, squalling, he's locking down on them. It's just a crazy battle in the middle of the woods. And so I make my way in there. I'm not far from him. And I see him with my light. I shine my light on him.

And whenever I shine my light on him, he has a, Coyote by the throat. And in that moment, I shamed a light on him. I blind him a little bit. He lets go with a coyote. The coyote takes off running. And you can see the pack starts to scatter and run away from me, you know, because they're scared of humans. And I walk over to Jake and I've been down and petting and stuff.

And he's holding his pile up. He's hurt, but he ain't in too bad a shape because he's stuffed dog and can take on a lot. he's a real muscular and really great shape. You know, I petted him and stuff, and he falls along behind me. And behind this great big black oak tree, huge black oak tree, I hear a coyote on the other side of it doing what I call a blood gargle. You know, it's choking on its own blood. And for just a brief moment, I'm a little bit tickled inside thinking,

you know, Bo came back and he's, He's around this side of this oak tree and he's got one of these coyotes and he'd come back and help O.J. Cald, you know, helped him in the fight. And so I don't think nothing about it. And I walk around this big black oak tree. I shine my light. And whenever I shine my light, that's whenever I notice, it wasn't bow. It wasn't bow at all. It's this great big dog.

When I say big, I mean, it's a big. It's the big as of St. Bernard, real wide, huge dog. I mean, it's huge. And it's a strange dog, you know, so I'm stopping. I stop and I shine my light. It's clear as day because my light's really bright. I shine my light on it, and it's, it has this coat by the chest, 40, 50-pound coat.

He's holding it by the chest in its mouth. I say he or she, but I don't really know if it was he or she. But it's holding it by the chest, and there's not a piece of this 40, 50-pound coyote's body that's touching the ground. That's how big this dog is. And I'm just standing there looking because, you know, it's this strange dog. Like, I don't know this dog. I've never seen it.

It's an odd-looking dog. And it notices me. And whenever it notices me, it drops that coyote out of its mouth. Just drops it down. Let's go of it. and then it's it almost leans forward and kind of looks like an old man standing up out of a rocking chair, the cracker barrel somewhere on the porch real slow. I don't hear any bones pop or nothing like that.

It just it almost leans in forward facing me. And it's standing up on its back legs. it's towering over me. You know, I'm 5'10, and it's at least two foot taller than I am. And in my mind, I'm thinking, there ain't no way in the world that this thing's standing up. It's got to be leaning against something

because it can't be standing up, you know. And then it takes two steps forward. And whenever it takes that two, steps forward, I get a good look at it. I get a look at its chest. It had the abdomen, almost like a man. It had blood dripping, coating it, running down its chest like a hot, hot candle wax dripping off a wick, just fresh. And then I see it pulls its hands up to its side. When I say hands, I mean hands. It didn't have Pauls.

It had hands like that of a man, but more claw-like, I guess you could say. And then it's charcoal color, not black, but like a burnt charcoal that you've been cooking with on a grill. You know, just almost a gray but black. And it had pitch black eyes, a darkness of. eternal black hole. It didn't have no light, no light reflecting off of it. It's just pitch black. And I'm looking at this thing, thinking to myself,

this is a damn werewolf. Like there's no way this isn't supposed to exist. You know, it's not, I'm looking at something that's not from this world. And it takes another step forward. towards me. We're just a few feet apart. And that's when it hits me. This thing is from hell and I have got to get out here. I turn around and start running. And it starts running after me towards me. I probably didn't make it 10 steps before old Jake hits into him. When I say he hits into him, I mean, he lunges his chest and his body weight and starts to snap and

at this monster starts to snap netting. And whenever I hear his body weight hitting, that thud hitting, I'm shining a lot forward and shining my light back the whole time. You know, I'm concerned about old Jake. And my light's bright enough where I can see everything that's going on behind me whenever I take those moments. And as sure as a world, that thing takes one hand and just pushes old Jack back,

rolls him away like a fly or flee like he was just a nap like he was nothing four or five foot just away like he was just nothing like it didn't even bother him at all this thing was just so much bigger and then after it does that it continues to pursue me coming straight on after me a little bit later i start yelling come on old jake put it to him come on boy you can do it Come on. I need you. Come on. And then he hits into him again. O.J. hits into him again. On his body weight. Lunching his body weight.

Because I have his gun strapped in my back. I didn't have the knowledge at that point in time of my life to deal with something like that. The world threw something to me that I was unprepared to deal with. And that gun was not going to do me a lick of good. Not on this thing. It wasn't. and then O. Jake hits him again, throwing that same body weight into him, snapping at him, trying to slow this monster down to stop it from pursuing me.

Because whether I was calling for him to do it or not, O. Jake was going to do it anyway because he felt like I was in danger. And once again, that thing just throws him away again like he was just nothing. and he just rolls over, rolls him over like he was nothing. I mean, old Jake's a hundred twenty pound dog. He ain't no little fella. Rows him way four or five foot. And then it continues to run on after me.

And I start yelling again, come on, old Jake, get him, put it to him. Come on, I need you. Come on, put it to him. Put it to him, old Jake, get him. And then, as I said, I'm shining my light. Then I hear this pop and I hear old Jake's jaws. locked down. And whenever I heard his jaws locked down that time, I knew that he got him.

And I shan him a lot back and O.Jek's hanging on this dog man's hip, just hanging there on the side of his hip like a chihuahua on a mailman. That's the size difference. He was just nowhere near as big as this thing was. And as sure as I'm telling you today, it stopped and grabbed a hold of O.J. both hands and threw him through the woods like he was a bag of trash like he was nothing. I mean, threw him through the woods. And I seen his body flying hitting low hanging tree branches and limbs and debris in the woods.

And that's it. That's it. That's when I realized that's it. He killed my dog. This dog man has killed my dog. It's just me and the monster. I ain't got nobody in the world that could save me because there's no way that he's alive after that. There's just no way.

And then it continues to run on after me. I'm alive for it. And I'm still screaming. Come on, old Jake. Come on, I need you. Put it to him, boy. Put it to him. I need you.

He ain't coming. He ain't coming at all. It's just me and this hellhound. It's just staying right on after me like a rabbit on a dog track, just every step. And it's going to ground on me. I mean, it's right on me. I was so nervous and so tore all the pieces in my mind, scared of death. I'm getting chased by something out of the movies,

what it looks like. Daniel Boone himself couldn't come up from a grave and help me. I mean, it's right on me. He's blown his breath on the back of my neck. That hot breath, it's going right around my side of my cheek. That breath didn't smell like rot. It smelled like if you've ever walked upon a buzzard truce

or a vulture roost in the middle of the woods while you're hiking or hunting or something like. that and the puke and vomit that they that they spit out smells like distinct and unique unlike anything I've ever smelled before and as I'm running and I'm tore all the pieces and I'm shattered a million pieces in my mind I trip and fall over a tree root or branch or something into a tree top that had blown over maybe lightning hit it or it or it felt over naturally. I'm not, I'm not exactly sure, but I fall into it. It looks like maybe an oak. And I fall on my belly face first. And I roll over on my back and I'm trying to push my way

backwards through all this bramble that I've got myself caught in. And by that time, this dog man drops down on all fours. And it's, I mean, we're face to face. We couldn't have been more than maybe two foot from each other. I'm looking at it straight in his face and it's snapping them jaws and that blood blowing that blood and snod on me. And blood's still dripping off of it fresh. And it's got its mouth open. And I can see down the back of its throat.

I can see its teeth, its jawline, its mouth, everything. And I mean, I'm shook to the core. I mean, this is horrible, horrible. sight that I'm seeing. And I'm still screaming. Come on, OJ, come on. I need you. Come on. Where are you at? Come on. I need you. Help me. Help me. Come on. Because that's the only thing I could think to do. You know, I still got that gun strapped from my back, but I'm just, my mind's just not there to use that gun.

And it wouldn't go do me no good anyways. And all of a sudden, as sure as I'm telling you this today, and that thing was on all fours come in at me, that mouth of snapping, snarling. Owl of nowhere like a hammerhead shark. Oh, Jake hits him broadside. Whenever he hits him broadside, he climbs up on top of him, and that thing rolls over on his back. He just starts munching on him, just mulling.

Just munching on him. And about that time of year, a bones crush. And Jake got him good somewhere. I don't know where he got it. him at. I tend to think now, looking back on it, maybe he got him on the hands and broke some bones in his hands or something. I'm not,

I don't know where he got him. But when I heard them bones break and that sucker led off a howl that rumbled me. I mean, it rattled me. I could feel it in my chest. It felt like a very earth around me that was shaking.

And that's when it hit me. This is my chance. and I stood up, climbed up out of that tree top, and just took off getting it back to the truck as fast as I can go. And I made it down not very far from the truck where my papat was waiting at. And I started yelling, come on, OJ, come on. And then the fight had changed,

and that thing had got a hold of O.J. And was a killing him. I mean absolutely killing him. You could hear him squalling. I mean, it's unlike, I don't know if anyone's ever heard the sound of a big dog in the woods, getting a mauled or attacked by a dogman or, you know, a panther or anything. Bear, it was just, it turns your guts. It just pulls your guts out and makes you feel just sick of hearing the animal that you loved getting mutilated.

because that's what was happening. And I took the gun off my back, and I held it up in the air and fired it, not towards the direction of old Jake, but up towards the cliffs. You know, this was a semi-automatic 22. Just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Every shot that I had in that gun, yelling, come on, come on, come on, old Jake, come on. I need you. Come on, let's go home.

Come on. Come on. I'm crying. Got tears rolling down my face. sweat, dirt, everything else, and everything just went silent. There wasn't the sound of crickets, no frogs, no night birds off chirping, nothing. It was just silence. I mean, I didn't smell nothing.

I didn't see nothing. I was just tore all the pieces. You know, I was shattered and broken. Then I turned around, ran on down to the truck, opened up the door, sat inside. my papa looked at me, he said, what in the world is going on? And I told him, I said, Papa, we got to go. We got to get out of here right now. There's a monster in the woods.

We have got to go now. Turn the key on and go. And I started explaining to him everything I could down to last detail. As he turned that truck on, and he said, I see you tore all the pieces. We'll head on out of here. And as I was telling him, he said, I'll take you home. He said, but listen, if what you told me is true, then we have to come back and get Jake. We have to.

And I told my papa, I said, listen, you know, there's no point. He's gone. He's dead. I mean, there's no way he lived. He went on to be with Jesus. you know, he's gone. And my papal took his jacket out off and opened up the door and threw his jacket out. Because there were several other times in the past where Jake didn't come back in

when we were on big cone hunting trips and stuff. And he'd find that sin of my papaw's jacket. And he'd lay there on that jacket until the next day we'd come to pick him up. Because, you know, in the deep Daniel Boone National Forest, it's thick country. and it's not always that the dogs can make it back out. We had no big fancy tracking systems or nothing like that. You know, and my papa said, listen, if what you said is true, then we owe it to him. And I started thinking about it, you know, I mean, even though I was, I mean, I was a glass case of emotion.

I was shattered in every way that a man can possibly be shattered. I mean, it's hard for me to tell the story right now. just reliving it. But he said, you owe it to him to come back. My papaw with knowledge well beyond my years was right. And he said, he fought for your life four times. Four times he fought for your life. He did it out of love for you.

We have got to come back and look for him. I said, well, all right, Papa, you know, at that age, my upbringing stuff, what my papal said was a law anyway and what he said went. No matter what I said or how I tried to argue, I didn't want to go back in them woods. There wasn't nothing in

the world that made me want to go back. But my upbringing, there was no back talking or saying, no, I'm not going to do it. You had to do it. It's just part of it. And on the right home, my papal explained to him, he said, listen, now, there's

things in these woods that I cannot explain. I've hunted these woods my whole entire life. But if you want to hunt and you want to fish and dig ginseng and look for mushrooms and do man stuff, you've got to come to terms with it. If you want to do what you love, you have to come to terms with. And that was knowledge that, I mean, well beyond my years. Life threw something at me on that night that I was not ready. and equipped to deal with.

And most men to this day would not be equipped to deal with it. Because it wasn't supposed to be real. It wasn't supposed to exist. But I know today that it bleeds just like anything else and that it exists. And it's tangible. It's real. I mean, it's real. I know that it's real.

So we went on back to the farm. I didn't get hardly any sleep at night. I tried my best. You know, I got what sleep I could. And the sun came up at next morning. You know, my papal woke me up. He said, all, let's go back out there. And we drove down that road.

You know, Bow never did come back either. We drove way on down that road. We'd stop. I would never get out of the truck. I'd draw the window down. My papal would get out of the truck. He'd walk up to the front of the truck and around the back of the truck. And he'd yell, come on.

Come on, O'Jek, come on. Let's go home, come on. And he'd whistle and stuff. And then I'd yell at the winter, come on, O'J, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. He never came on. He never did. And then, you know, we done that for a couple hours, and we went back home, back out to the farm. And a papal told me, he said, we'll go back out this evening, look again.

We went back out that evening. done the same exact thing. We'd stop and roll down the windows and get out of the truck and yell and whistle and try to get him to come on in. Nothing was moving. We never seen no dog man or nothing else moving. I mean, there was just nothing moving. We drove on down to his jacket that he threw out and we yelled

and tried to get him calling him to come in. He never came in. And that evening, after we tried a few times, my papal yelled and said, Hey, listen, there's something coming through the woods here. And I was listening, you know, looking. And on down the road real slow, there's something moving in the woods.

It come out to the gravel road. My papal said, hey, Bow's down there in the road. That big red tick dog yours. Go get in the back of the truck and get your dog leash and go down there and get him. I said, all right, Papa, because, you know, like I said, that was law. I went and got my dog and leash out of the back of the truck.

I started walking down the road to him, and he's walking real slow. Whenever I got up close to him, I noticed that he wasn't bowled. It was old Jake, and he's covered head to toe and blood. It's maddened in him. He's moving real slow. His back, right hips fractured. He's walking with a severe limb. It's got big gash marks down the back of his hips.

His nose is just about sitting sideways on his face, barely hanging on. His chest is ripped open. You could see his chest plate there in the front. Both of his ears look like freshly cooked ramen noodles on both sides. It's just meat hanging, you know. It just looked like a meat sack, you know. He's mangled and mutilated, just barely hanging on alive. there wasn't much life in him.

You know, but he's alive. And I yelled at my papa, I said, Papa, it's old Jake. And Papa walked over to him, and he was always a tough love type of man, you know. That's just how he was. He's a tough love type of man.

He had a bad heart and everything. But to this day, I never seen him do what he done that day. he went over and picked up all 120 pounds old Jake's body walked over to the back of the truck and he didn't put him in the dog box he just laid him down real slow in the back of the truck

and I mean he's hanging on alive and I mean his collar was gone and his tail most of his tail had been ripped off but much of his tail left and we drove back up to the farm and whenever we drove up to the farm, my pal packed old Jake in the house, you know,

and I believe most people at this time probably would have would have probably drove him home and loaded up a gun and probably put a bullet in his head and put him out of his misery, you know, because he's suffering. But we didn't. My mama had done a lot of veterinarian work on the farm and stuff with all of her animals.

She kept him in the house there for three weeks, and she doctored him back to life, back to health. He lived. I mean, yeah, he's mutilated and stuff, but he lived. We had a lot of Ken Pope family and stuff come up and see him, see him how bad up a shape he was in. He tore up, but, I mean, she doctored him up. And brought him back to life, we gave him, we gave him,

he drank Gatorade and stuff like that, you know. I mean, whatever, whatever remedy that she could come up with, you know, she glued his ears back, everything she could do, and he actually ended up surviving and making it through it. And there was no reason at all that he should have lived. There was no reason for it. The only thing I can think that that pulled him through was the love that he had for us. And that was a really hard thing for me to deal with.

And I struggled with that for years, even into my adulthood, knowing that if it hadn't been for my papal's knowledge and how humble of a man he was, I would have never went back. And it's hard for me to say because he fought for my life four times. Four times he threw himself in front of virtually a train. Like there was no reason at all that he should have came out on the other side. But he did.

And he actually went on to live a pretty happy and healthy, healthy life after that, you know. He lived a long life. And we were best friends from that point on. If I ever went up there to my mom-m-a-paw's house, even after he got too old to hunt, like he went back and coon hunting stuff after that. After he got doctored up and healed up and went through recovery,

he'd go back out of cunos. again. He hunted until he couldn't hunt more. Once he got so old and stuff, he, uh, I'd go up there to the farm and unhook him from his, from the chain. He'd follow me around everywhere I went. You know, we were best friends to the day he died. We had a special connection.

And anytime I ever go up to the farm now, there's a holler that runs down our property, that whenever old Jake finally died, we buried him in. I call it old Jake holler. And every single time I ever, go up there, I always look over and remember what he done for me. I'll never forget. Not at that point in my life, if it hadn't been for him, I don't know what would happen that night. I don't. That is, that's a tough pill to swallow, you know. I mean, being in your shoes and going

through it, you went through that night. And then the after, the emotion afterwards, of knowing how Jake survived, but knowing that if your grandfather wasn't there, you might not have had the life experience to think, to even go back to look for Jake the next day. I can understand why that hits you so hard, you know? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just, and that's, the experience in itself was traumatic and it has shaped my life in a way that not many people's lives has probably been shaped in.

But after, but what, for years after that, I suffered as I end up self-medicating with alcohol. And the reason why I'd done that was not because of the experience in itself, because that experience in itself was horrible. But knowing that something loved me so much. that it through itself, sacrificed itself over and over and over again for my protection. I love that I didn't have that life experience and would have just left him because I was so broken.

But I wasn't ready for that in my life. I wasn't. I mean, who would have been? There's not a person that's listening to this right now that if they were in my shoes would have known what to do. that young, that early in life. You know, I'd hunted and fish and stuff in them hills. These mountains around here, my whole entire life. Go up by myself and play them even as a kid and stuff.

And, you know, you don't expect to see what isn't supposed to be real. You know, I never knew that these things existed. So, I mean, how were you supposed to deal with it? Right. Now, I know we're going to get into more conversation about, you know, this experience and, you know, I know you've seen the dog man again since then and your family's experiences and all that stuff. But I wanted to ask you, do you, and I know this is this question you, you don't have much of an answer for, but more of just maybe a thought and opinion. But do you have any, do you wonder why? your grandfather never warned you about the dogman being out there. I mean, because he said, he told you on the way back. He said, you know, you got to understand that there's things out here.

You're not going to understand you. You need to come to grips with that if you're going to be out here hunting. Did you ever wonder why you didn't get that heads up beforehand as in like, did he maybe hope that you just never came across it or it's something that you have to experience for yourself and not even believe? I'd say a little bit of both, you know, that there's a chance that I might not have ever came across of it and that, you know, one person could have an experience in it. If you don't experience that for yourself or you may not ever experience it, then how are you supposed to explain that to someone? and being that he was a tough love type of guy I mean he's a very loving person

but he was smart and had a lot of a lot of knowledge and a super humble person had a lot of country knowhow that that got him through and if it wasn't for his experiences in life

then he wouldn't have ended up being the person he is you know and also only now I can say that I'm a good person but it took me a lot of experiences along the way to become the person I am. Yeah. Man, I can only imagine going through what you went through and how I would react to that. Hunting would be off the list for me, for sure. And I'm absolutely stunned that Jake actually was able to go back out hunting.

Did he ever show signs that he was hesitant to even go back out there? there? No, he didn't. And it's because that was his love. You know, he loved to hunt. And he, uh, he ended up until he couldn't no more, you know, up until arthritis set in on him and stuff. And he wasn't able to get around. And, you know, that was his love and his passion, love to go out because, you know, these things, they are animals. They are creatures. They're not supernatural. They believe just like anything else. And for all I know, he may have come across him at some other point, you know. And dogs hold on trauma different than what people do.

And I've raised and bred and sold dogs and stuff my entire life. I've trained them. And every dog's different just like people, you know. They all have personalities just like people. And it didn't affect him, you know, as far. cars going back out and going hunting and stuff. Yeah, he didn't get around as good as he did before. But the love for the hunt never left that dog until he died. Yeah, I know you mentioned about how Jake was, and I'm not sure if you actually mentioned it on here, but I know in one of our

previous conversations, you mentioned about how Jake was kind of legendary in that area. Like, everybody knew about Jake. Did he ever kind of returned to that kind of form, or was he more of a, I don't know, a normal dog, you know, where it's just like, ah, he's a hunting dog. He's not the super human or super dog hunting dog anymore. His status went to just normal hunting dog, like all the coon hunters in the community and stuff. They knew he was an excellent dog and a great track dog and a meat dog. Like, whenever he barked, whenever he opened up, you can, you can, you can, you can, take that check to the bank and cash it because he was after a coon.

But we also at that point, after all that stuff happened, we stopped taking them out with other friends and family that would come around and want to go out hunting and bring a dog with their own. We just, he'd already been through so much that we didn't want to take the chance on bringing other dogs around and possibly. You know, because dogs are just like people, and sometimes hounds can have disagreements with each other, especially hunting because there's so much adrenaline and everything that goes into it, even for them, that, you know, fights break out amongst dogs while they're hunting. And we just, we never would risk it anymore after that by bringing a friend along with them that that might have a pup that needs to see some raccoon. we just we just didn't do it it was just whenever we'd go out we would just take him out after that

and hunt him by itself i got you yeah it makes sense and you know earlier you were talking about early in the story about how oh the the dogs barking and and you could tell what was going on by their barking um is that something that that you you as a hunter pick up just knowing your dogs or is there like a very specific kind of bark that happens with these hounds and stuff that, you know, signal what they're hunting. I mean, it's just I've never been around hunting dogs, let alone out in the woods hunting with a dog to know the differences in barks because like at one point you even said that the barks had had changed and it sounded like the fight changed for the better for you guys. And you thought that Bo had come back. And I'm assuming looking back at it,

I mean, it sounds like maybe, obviously it wasn't Bo that came back to help that fight, but maybe the dog man came in and kind of just busted up the whole fight, whether Jake was there or not. Yeah. Dogs have specific type of barks. Whenever a hound is tracking a raccoon, they'll do what's called a ball bark, where it's a longer, drawed out bark. And then once they find where the raccoon is at,

then they do what's called a locating bark, which is more like a wolf howl, like a small version of a wolfhow that's long and drawn out. Drawn out, but it's like a miniature version of a wolfhow. Which, you know, they'll bark one long strain that's anywhere from three to ten seconds nonstop. And then it goes into what's called a chop where it's like constant quick barks. That's what's called a chop.

And that's whenever they're looking up the tree because they're looking up towards the last place that they smell the scent of the raccoon. And that's called a chop when they're looking up and barking like that because it's constant. Kind of like your little yipping house dogs that you hear people that's just going, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. that's what's called a chop. So it's a ball on the ground, whenever the raccoon is on the ground, it's called a ball because there are longer than chops, but they're shorter than locates. And once you hear these dogs and you get used to their personalities and everything,

like, we could tell whenever the raccoon had tricked old Jake because he would let off what's called a triple bark, where he would go, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Then there would be a pause, and then he'd go right back into it, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and then there'd be a pause because he knew it was there, but didn't know the exact location. So he was signaling back to us through his barks, hey, it's around here, I haven't found it yet, I'm not sure.

Because, you know, a raccoon, you know, they can trick dogs and get away from them. They'll mark a tree, like sometimes a raccoon will go up and they'll climb up halfway up on a tree, and then they'll walk 10, 15, 20 yards, and they'll climb up a couple different trees, and they'll mark them because they can't decide which tree they want to go up,

which way they feel safest. And sometimes if a dog's not that great of a dog, they'll get tricked by that. And then the dog will bark of a tree that doesn't have anything in it because the raccoon has tricked the dog. And earlier, whenever we were talking about the fight and how there's different changes in the dynamics,

I've came to this conclusion that Jake and Bo were trailing this raccoon, and they trailed this raccoon to the tree that they were at, got a tree, and they were barking, letting us know, hey, we found it. They were after the raccoon. and that pack of coyotes heard Jake and Bo barking, and that triggered in their head, hey, there's a meal ticket over here. There's animals in the woods that's letting us know exactly where they're at. We're going to go over here and try to get a meal.

We're going to try to eat these dogs because coyotes, they will eat dogs. And so that's what they done. and then in between when those fights broke out to when the dog man showed up, because if the dogman would have showed up at the same exact time that the coyotes were there, the whole fight would have been bad. It would have been straight death for our dogs that night. So what I think happened is that from the smell of its breath, I know that the dogman is a creature of opportunity.

You know, it'll eat both living and dead creatures from the smell of its breath. Because as I said, it smells like the puke from a vulture or a buzzard. And they're the only breath, I mean, like a buzzer truce, that's the only smell in the world in the entire planet that smells like that. that I've came across in the woods. That's the only, like, rot, rot is different. I've smelled decaying animals and stuff like that. But the puke that a buzzer releases has its own smell. It's in its own category of stink.

There's nothing else that smells like it. Nothing. And so it took its opportunity. It heard a fight breaking out in the woods, and it headed in the direction of our dogs and those coyotes. and showed up. And luckily, if,

if the dog man would not have grabbed a hold of the coyotes and would have grabbed a hold of old Jake at the very beginning, this story would be completely different. You know, he probably would have killed him. And Bo as well. And you, I mean, honestly,

I mean, if that, if it happened like that, I mean, we're talking about you coming up to a scene where, a dog man had just killed your dogs and you have no dogs to defend you like you did. I mean, you may not even be here to tell that story. Yeah, that's true too, you know, that's also true.

I didn't even think about it like that. That's unbelievable. And also, side note, Beau was found as well. There was a couple weeks later. we got a call from a local market that as you go into the dangle boon there's one store there old country store it's shut down now but all of our dogs always had nameplates on them a couple weeks later we got a call from the market and me and my papa my grandfather we we drove over there and picked him up and he he was missing like I said for two weeks and he had some little

cut some him and stuff where the coyotes grabbed a hold of them but they wasn't bad

they'd already he started to heal up around that time and he was in

poor he had poor weight you know he'd lost quite a bit of weight

from being gone for two weeks but he was in relatively good health

for as much as he went through which was nowhere near the same

amount as what old Jake had their under yeah

I I can imagine his wounds were a lot different

then Jake's for sure. I found it interesting. And with our previous conversations, I just have a hard time remembering what you said here and what you said to me in one of our other phone calls. But you mentioned about how the dogs learn to hunt. Actually, I think you did talk about it in beginning. I found that really interesting because I never knew how you train a dog to do those kind of things. And it makes sense. Like if you have dogs around that are used to hunting, You do some training with the pup, but eventually they go out and they learn from the other dogs by what they do. Yeah, I mean, that's the same thing with like people who have sled dogs and stuff. They learn from running with the pack as far as that goes.

And they, I mean, you can train a dog by itself with like a raccoon hide or whatever type of small game that you're looking for. you can do it like that, but it just, it takes a lot longer. So, you know, if they have, if the dogs,

it has some intelligence about it, because not every hound makes a hunting dog. And the saying, you can't teach an old dog a new trick, that actually comes from houndsmen. Because if you have a dog that's three or four years old, that's a hound, and you try to train it to hunt,

then most of the time, the majority of the time, you're not going to have success, although sometimes it has happened. There are people who make a dog that's never hunted into a hound. But, I mean, there's a lot of discipline and stuff that they have to learn, that they can only learn by running with an old dog. Whenever I say discipline, I'm not saying like, like I said, we train every dog with love.

If we never did beat on them or nothing like that, we scolded them sometimes. But, you know, they have to learn that, hey, if I grab a hold of a skunk, it's going to spray me and I'm going to get sick. And so, you know, there's a lot of things that they have to learn without a human actually being there. And they pick it up from running with old dogs. They pick up what these old dogs are doing to get success. They fall in love with tracking the raccoons. and they figure out, hey, this is what this other dog I'm running with is doing to get the reward. And so they start doing it eventually.

It takes time, but after a while, they get the hang of it. Yeah, I find it really interesting. I find all this really interesting. With the dog man that you saw that night, you described the hands and how they're almost like human hands with claws. you mentioned about how there was the chest was like a human chest. And you mentioned about obviously the facial features. But I was wondering with my mental image here, it would it be too far of a stretch to say that the feet were more human-like?

Or did they look more dog-like? Or did you not really get a good look? Now, on my first encounter, I never got to say, the feet or the legs very well because I'm point blank with it looking at all the scary features. So on the first one, I did not get to see the bottom portion of its body. And I don't know if it was a male or female. You know, I know that when I say it has the chest of a man, the abdomen of a man, you know, it's hairy, but it's more, it's more like built like a man's chest is.

you know, and it has a really narrow waist. It doesn't have a real broad waist. It's a waist, it's narrow. You know, that's the most narrow part of it. And the head's proportionate to the body. It doesn't have an oversized head or a smaller head or anything like that. It has a proportionate head to the body size. And the ears on it kind of look like that of like a German person.

police or a grey wolf, but are more, they stick more to the side of its head, like a, kind of like a lynx or a bobcat, wildcat, you know, more like that, but, you know, like a dog, you know, like a dog's version of that, I guess you could say. It didn't, it didn't have any like tufts of hair or anything coming out of its ears like a bobcat would per se. But I mean, it does stick to the side of its head a little bit more. And it didn't have its ears tilted back towards me the whole entire time its ears were pointed up. You know, it didn't move its ears around. And I can say that as far as description goes on the first one, that the throat, the back throat,

like when its mouth was fully opened and I could see it into the throat, it has a really big throat hole that's bigger than a canine. You know, like, because what it was doing in the first attack on the coyote, it wasn't a normal amount of blood that you would see from like an animal fight or an animal attack even. The amount of blood that that dog man had on it was it was essentially eating that coyote alive while it was attacking it. It was just covered in blood. Like it couldn't wait to kill the coyote before it started eating.

It was eating on that coyote. while it was killing it. And I can say from the teeth, I can't say 100% sure if it has more teeth than what a canine would have or less gaps between each tooth because its mouth looks like

it was just filled with teeth, but because it's dark and there's all this adrenaline going. And I had a really, bright flashlight. Like I said, this light's a high-powered flashlight, like a spotlight that you would use on a boat looking for buoys or something. Like, it's a really bright, and it lit up the whole entire forest. So as I'm looking forward and looking back, I'm seeing everything pretty clear. And the mouth and the teeth, I couldn't tell, like I said, if it had more teeth or less space,

I couldn't determine that. And I can say that the muzzle on this dog man is stuck out from its face about eight inches away from his face. You know, let's give or take. It might have been more than that. And actually, the lips, its actual mouth, this is unlike a canine.

that on a canine the mouth ends at the back of the muzzle as the corners of its mouth touch the back of its muzzle is where a canine's mouth ends but on the dog man it's not like that on the dog man its mouth actually goes up on a little bit probably a couple of inches on each side of the face. So its mouth is actually bigger than that of a canine. And so whenever its mouth is opened about a quarter way,

like not all the way, because in the first encounter, it's snapping its jaws and spitting that blood and snod and everything else on me, I'm seeing its face. I mean, I'm looking right at it because that's the scariest part of it. I'm looking right at it because it's right in my face. And its jaws, like I said, or its lips go up on the side of his head a little bit. So whenever it's open about a quarter of the way, not fully opened, when its mouth is open about a quarter of the way, it almost looks like,

and you could swear about it that it's smiling at you. But it's not smiling. in no way, shape or form is it, is it an emotional discharge from the face? It's not a smile. It's not some sort of happiness or a sense of malice or anything like that. That's just how it's made. That's the creature's makeup. There's no emotion in its mouth when it's open a quarter of the way.

There's no smile. It looks like a smile. And you would think that it is small, but it's not. That's just how it's made. It's interesting you say that because I've had conversations with people that describe creatures with similar characteristics. And the very first time I came across this was a guy who had gotten lost in the Smoky Mountains. I think it was like episode 84 or 85 that I did way back in the day. And he got lost out there and he was describing this face that he saw.

all. It's been so long that I'm pretty sure he talked about it, like, seeing his face, like, out of the bushes or something like that. It wasn't like a full body thing. But one of the things that always stuck in my head was that he called it a smile. He said it had this smile on its face. It was just like, it went almost like it went from ear to ear. And then I had another guy on. And one of the characteristics of this guy that described that was he said, whatever he was looking at had almost like what he called raccoon eyes. They had like these dark black spots around its eyes. And, and then not too long ago, just a couple weeks ago, I interviewed a guy who was in the Smoky Mountains at the exact location that that experience happened. Like he said

when he listened to that episode, he knew exactly where the guy was at because the guy went into such great detail. He knew the area. He knew exactly what he was talking about. And this guy actually had what had some go-pros on him and when he was looking back through his footage there

looks like something peeking around a tree at him and you see two eyes that looked like raccoon eyes

looking at him and it just it was striking resemblance I have the picture I looked at it it's not something you have to squint real hard to see

and uh So the fact that both those guys had some kind of an experience with something that had those dark circles around the eye, the first guy says it looked like it was smiling at him. Well, the Smoky Mountains aren't that far from Daniel Boone. And I just wonder, I wonder if what they experienced was a dog man of some kind. I mean, the picture that I saw, it really, it doesn't, like, I wouldn't say that was a dog man if I was just looking at it.

It wouldn't strike me like that. I've never seen a dog man a person, but it's just not what I would have imagined as a dog man. So I don't know if it's two different things or what, but just the smile that you described kind of sticks out to me, especially since Daniel Boone and the Smokies, you know, in the grand scheme of geography, they're not that far apart. Yeah, they're not. And, like, if anyone that you can get on or talk to that has been point blank with them, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm not the only one that's been that close to them.

I know I'm not. There's too many people in the world that has been that close to a dog man. I can't say any about other cryptids, but that has been that close to a dog man can tell you that their mouth goes upon the side of their face is essentially what it is. And once it's open, it's just the way it's made, you know, the way the creature's made. And I do feel like that it is part of the canine family, that it does have some DNA of the canine in its ancestry somewhere. And I know that it's not a paranormal creature. It's flesh and blood, just like anything else. Maybe it just, maybe you just don't see as many of them out there, because maybe.

It's like an elephant, you know, they hold their babies a long time before they have them out. And for all I know, then, you know, they might not have a full litter of pups. You know, for all I know, I'm saying pups, but I'm not really sure. And even the actions that the animal took, because I've raised and sold and trained hounds my entire lives and canines. I've worked with them. I've seen the actions that they have. When I say actions, I'm saying the very first dog man that I encountered had a dominant stance. When I say dominant stance with canines, whenever there's a canine that's establishing dominance or that is mad and upset and means to cause harm or to stand its ground, when they breathe and they're in this dominant stance, they breathe.

they breathe from their chest. And anyone that's ever been around dogs can attest to this that they breathe from the chest whenever they're mad or upset or they're wanting to stand their ground and let you know, hey, don't mess with me or I'm pissed off

and I'm coming at you. They breathe from their chest. And a dog or canine that's, I guess you'd say, K-Nid, not K-9, because, I mean, it'd be a member of K-N-E-D family. would be that one that's calm would take a breath from its belly.

You know, like you see a dog that's playing or relaxing, and you see it breathing. Then it's breathing from its belly. It's in a relaxed state. And they have a lot of similarities between how a pissed off cana, or canid would look compared to the dog man and a pissed off state. And honestly, I believe to this day that the reason why the dog man chased after me in the first place was the same exact reason why a dog that's that has an ate for a while or that's really protective of his food. You pour a dog, it's dog feed out in a bowl, there's a good chance that it might, if you bend down the pit, it might bite its owner.

Not every dog. That's why it's important if you have a dog from a pup. Whenever you feed it, you always pet it. That way, if you have some kids or something, go around your dog, then it's used to getting petted and loved on while it's eating. But it's a dangerous thing to do if you have one that's been loved on or that it's never been loved on while it's eating its meal. and I came in on it essentially while it was having its lunch,

you know, while it was having its dinner, it's midnight snack, whatever you'd want to say. And I was in its territory, and I was too close for comfort, and it felt threatened, and that's why it took off after me. And then once it took off after me, and I continued to run, and then it became predator versus prey

because I was running away. And if I was faced in that same exact situation to this day, would I react differently or would I kill it if I had a big enough firearm? Absolutely 100% if I was faced with the same exact situation. But most hunters, almost I hunters, and I know that I am this way, I'm a conservationist before I am a hunter, meaning that I love wildlife. life. I want to see it to continue to grow. I don't want all the deer and all the turkey and all the bobcats and all the elk and all these different creatures. I don't want them all killed. I'm not going to hang 10, 20 deerheads on my wall. I'm not that guy. I'm not. And so with that being said, I don't want all them killed and hunted and track. down and annihilated off the face of the earth. That's not what I want. Because they're part

of the habitat and environment in the dangle moon just like any other creature. I honestly feel that wholeheartedly. And I don't want them all killed. Even though that traumatic event I went

through, a lot of people would say, yeah, kill them all. I'm not that guy. You know? Because the second one, that I seen in my second encounter never caused me any harm. And I seen it pretty close, nowhere near as close as I did in my first encounter, but close enough to where it was uncomfortable. But it never caused me any harm.

Yeah, and I can understand that mindset and stuff. I've talked to plenty of hunters, and that's a very common mindset. And it makes sense. I mean, you should be a conservationist. I mean, especially as hunters who, you know, are out there living off land for food and things like that, you don't, you're not there to abuse the habitat. You thrive off the habitat. You live off of it. So you're there to, you know, take what you need and not go crazy.

I'll tell you what, we're coming up on an hour and a half here on this first segment. So let's take a quick break. And then we're going to open it up here again for the overtime segment. and we're going to get into more stuff here. I mean, we have so much to talk about. We're going to talk about your second encounter here. We're going to talk about your dad's experience, your grandpa's experience, slew foot and what all that entails. And just there's so many different things we're going to go into. Even the idea that you never even knew of these things as quote unquote cryptids, it was just something that was part of your life growing up. And I think it's a really

interesting conversation. I want to say thank you very much for joining us on this first segment. Members, if you want, go ahead and log in because the second hour, who knows how long we're going to go on this overtime segment. It's there right now waiting for you. So I'll tell you what, Kyle. Thank you very much for joining me here on the first segment. Yeah, I am. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did enjoy, please share this show everywhere on the internet. Text it to everybody. You all have cell phones. You text people every day. Take the link to this show and text it to people right now. If you want the YouTube link, it's available on YouTube right now.

So go to YouTube, hit the subscribe button for the Confessionals, take the video and share it with everybody. But make sure you hit the subscribe button because once we hit that 25,000 mark, I am releasing this first of many journeys. I'm about to go on for chasing legends. It's going to be awesome. I promise you. But we're not going to release anything until we hit 25,000 subscribers. So go ahead and subscribe to the Confessionals on YouTube right now. And if you remember, go ahead to the website right now in the overtime section.

There is a whole other hour and a half of this conversation with Kyle waiting for your listening pleasure. And then on Thursday, we're going to be talking to Kyle again about strange Kentucky and all the weirdness that happens in Kentucky. And until next week, friends, stay safe, take care and remember the truth was such a free. But first, it'll piss you off. Bye. If you want to look at it, there's like a religious significance to this as well. I wouldn't say people should come here for pilgrimages, but they say that these rocks, which were all underwater at one time, came up from underneath the water when the continents shifted. And they reference how the continents shift. Some people talk about how it was a great flood that shifted the continents.

And so if the continents did shift from a great flood, and this whole rock formation was like a river. bed or an ocean bed that got turned sideways through the tecto-tonic plate shifting and pushed up, then we literally might be touching and standing next to something that literally was a result of the great flood in the Bible, which is really cool to think about. We've assaulted Macdonalds of all the world to bring here his The best products. Proublos all before that

us picken.