I Hear You Knocking: A Terrifying Encounter with the Michigan Dogman

Listen to the story:

This account of an encounter with the Michigan Dogman was told to me personally, from someone that is very close to me. I have no reason to believe that they would fabricate this story, especially since that person has only told a few others, all of which are close to that person. All names have been changed to protect the identity of the people in the story. You can make up your own mind, but I assume this story to be true...

Maybee Road

Maybee road is a little dirt road that runs through Clarkston, Michigan. At the time that this incident took place, the area surrounding Maybee road was all heavily wooded. There were homes scattered here and there. The average distance between most neighbors on this road was about a quarter of a mile.

It was a quiet place overall. Nothing much ever went on in the area. It was mostly small families who, for the most part, kept to themselves. The area didn't see much traffic either. If you were down that way, it was because you lived there, or were close with someone who did.

There was a woman who lived on Maybee Road. We will call her Nancy. Nancy lived alone in a little single wide mobile home, on a small lot. She worked a lot, and was hardly ever at the home. Her neighbors, who were roughly a quarter of a mile away, owned a small farm type house. For about a mile stretch, these were the only two residences.

Nancy was in the process of moving closer to her family. One night, after arriving home from work, Nancy found that someone had broken in to her trailer and left everything in a state of ruin. All of her stuff was thrown about, her furniture was tipped over, and a lot of her clothing was shredded.

Fearful that who ever had broken in to her trailer and destroyed all of her belongings might come back, she asked her friend John to watch the house over night, as she would be getting a truck to move all of her belongings the next morning. John agreed to stay in the house over night while Nancy was out.

House Party

John decided to invite his brother Joe, and two of their friends Bill and Bob. There was no power running to the trailer at this point. All of the utilities had been disconnected and transfered to Nancy's new home. Naturally, they decided to bring a battery powered radio and a ton of beer. The plan was to party through the night and in to the morning. But that is not at all how the night went.

They arrived at the house just before dusk. The sun was already almost down for the night. The men decided to get the radio set up and start distributing the beer as quickly as possible, before there wasn't any light left (I'm sure they had flash lights, but I can't honestly remember).

I hear you knockin' but you can't come in...

The men settled in and prepared for a dark, dark night. Several hours of light drinking and goofing off have passed at this point. A familiar song comes on the radio. "I hear you knocking but you can't come in" starts to play and John, being funny, goes to the door. He jokingly opens the door as he sings along. What was on the other side of the door was probably the last thing that he expected to see.

John had come face to face with the single most terrifying thing that he had ever encountered. He stared in to the eyes of what looked almost like a Doberman pincher. This was no dog, though. It stood on two legs, and was slightly taller than John. John is 6 foot 3 inches tall. As John described it to me, it was like seeing a dogs head on a gorillas body. He would later discover that what he came face to face with, is the creature known as the Michigan Dogman.

The Michigan Dogman took a step forward like it was going to push right past him and in to the house. John panicked, slamming the door in the creatures face. As the door slammed shut the beast let out an ungodly howl that no one in that house will ever forget. It was a combination of primal beast, metal scrapping, and sheer pain. The person that told me this story (John) was unable to come up with anything to accurately describe the sound that he heard emanate from this beast as he stated that he had never heard anything even remotely close to this before, or since.

But wait... There's More!

The group of men were all severely shaken by what they just witnessed. They all cowered together in the center of the room for a good half an hour, maybe longer, trying to decide what to do. Finally, it was suggested that someone move to the window nearest the door and peak out to see if the beast was still out there.

After several moments of arguing amongst themselves, John finally knew that if he didn't do it, no one would. He slowly crept towards the window. He made his way to the window, and after slowly pulling the corner of the curtain back, he sees that the beast is no longer standing at the door step. He pulls the curtain back further to investigate the rest of the property, and what he sees is much more disturbing.

The Michigan Dogman that was on the steps, was not the only one there. There were several of them frolicking about the yard. There were two of them chasing each other around on all fours, seemingly playing, much like dogs would. There was another lying on it's back swatting up at the neighbors sheets that they had laid across their clothesline.

Nancy's neighbor bred and raised collie puppies. Another of the beasts sat in the neighbors dog pen playing with the puppies. It gently pawed at them, and shoved them away. It looked like a relatively harmless play date, until one of the puppies got a little too aggressive. The Michigan Dogman grabbed the dog from under it's belly with one hand, throwing it over it's head and behind it, for a distance great enough that no one in the house could tell where it landed.

As the men got more and more riled up watching these things out in the yard, the noise coming from the house must of alerted the beast. One of them abruptly turned to look at the window were all of the men were now standing, peering out at the creatures. In a panic, the men dropped the curtain and swiftly retreated back to the center of the room. The sudden silence was unsettling.

The men quietly scoured the trailer with there eyes, moving them from window to window, hoping to get a glimpse of anything that would give them an idea of where these creatures were. The disturbing silence was soon interrupted by several large thuds against the side of the mobile home. 

Under Attack

The silence that had fallen on the property was abruptly interrupted. Several large booms vibrated the structure of the trailer. The men stood there in awe, unsure of what the sound was. They were faced with yet another dilemma. Do we stay here and remain silent and hope that these things will just leave? Do we move back to a window and try to see what is going on? Do we make a mad break for it, and hope that they can't catch us?

They settled on trying to see outside again. They approached the window once more. As they peered out the window, the beasts began an all out attack on the trailer. The house became the recipient of a barrage of stones, coming from every direction. This went on for several minutes, while the men once again chose to kneel in the center of the room, shielding their face to protect them in the event of one of the windows being shattered by the flying stones.

Without a moments notice, the rocks stop hitting the house. Just as quickly as the rocks had stopped, the trailer began to rock side to side. John jumped to his feet and ran to the window opposite the one he peaked out of earlier. Ripping the curtains back, he came to a grim realization. The creatures had refined their tactics. They had split into two groups, one group on each side of the trailer. They were taking turns pushing the trailer.

The trailer rocked in each direction, one after another, each time tipping just a bit higher than the time before. The men were under the assumption that at any minute, the trailer was going to tip over. The only question was, which way is it going to tip? Seemingly out of nowhere the trailer stopped rocking. The men sat silently for several minutes, just listening, waiting for the next wave of attack.

After ten to fifteen minutes of silence, the men realized that the sun was starting to poke it's head out. There was a faint light coming through the window. John once again ran to the window. He looked out the window. There was nothing out there. He quickly ran to the window on the opposite wall. Nothing on that side either. He investigated the property from every angle that he could see. After a few moments of reconnaissance, the men decided to take their chances and get the hell out of there.

As John slowly cracked the door open, he noticed what caused the Michigan Dogman to howl when he first slammed the door. There was a nail hanging about three inches out of the wooden door. It was used around Christmas time when Nancy hung her wreath. From the nail hung a patch of fur, and what looked like blood. The nail must have hit the monster as the door slammed shut. At least that is what everyone involved would later conclude.

John opened the door a little further and seen that there was no one, or no thing, in sight, and made a break for the station wagon that they had arrived in. One after another they filed out of the house as quickly as possible. They made a mad dash for the station wagon, never looking back. They got in the car and peeled out. Luckily, they all made it home safely.

More questions than answers

This incident happened in the late 70's. It wasn't until the late 90's that this story was told to me by John. It wasn't until several years later that I began to find other stories of a similar nature. There are tons of cases of Michigan Dogman sightings and encounters, mostly in Michigan and Wisconsin, with a few scattered around the lower parts of Canada that touch both Michigan and Wisconsin. There are quite a few of them that have similar traits as this story, with the stone throwing, the rocking of the trailer, and then the abrupt end to the madness.

There are a lot of questions here that can't be answered. Was it the Michigan Dogman that originally sacked the trailer and shredded Nancy's clothes? If so, why didn't they attempt to enter the trailer while the men were in there? Why would they choose to throw rocks and rock the mobile home? Was this some kind of game to them? Were they intentionally terrorizing these men, just for the fun of it? What finally made them leave?

One thing that I should note, is that the dog that was thrown was, in fact, found a few days later. It was found in a wooded area behind Nancy's neighbors home, directly behind where the Michigan Dogman had been playing with the pups. The puppy was found on it's back, lifeless, with large tears in it's abdomen and it's organs lying next to it, barely still attached.

Why would we ever go back there?

That was the general consensus when John asked all of his friends that were there that night, if they would make another trip out there with him. He didn't want to stop there and hang out. I mean, why would anybody want to do that after how things went the first time. Besides, the trailer was already being occupied by someone else at this point, so they wouldn't be hanging out there.

His goal was to bring a camera with him and try to get photographic evidence of the creature that they had seen. He knew that even with four people all seeing the same thing, what they saw was very unbelievable, and therefore, no one would believe him. He knew that if he got solid, concrete evidence of this creature, no one could tell him that they were making it up.

The only person that would agree to come with him was his brother Joe. Joe also brought along his girlfriend at the time, who knew nothing about the original incident. The three of them headed out in Joe's car (not the station wagon).

Back down the rabbit hole

They drove slowly down Maybee road for several miles. They passed the original site of the nightmare that they experienced and kept driving. Several miles up the road they decided it would be faster to turn around and make a pass back down Maybee road to get home, opposed to turning off where they were. They turned the car around and headed back the way they came.

Once again they passed the site of the original incident. They drove slowly passed it, staring up on to the property to see if they could see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed out of place so they kept driving. It was just a few moments later that they would have their next and final encounter with the Michigan Dogman.

They drove slowly, very slowly. John sat on one side of the car (I believe he said the passenger side). Joe's girlfriend took the other side. Each scanned the tree line of the woods down Maybee road looking for movement. Just about a half a mile from the trailer, they heard a loud howl. They all scrambled to see where the noise was coming from. It wasn't easy to see anything in the pitch black night, especially when surrounded by nothing but trees.

Shortly after the howl something hit the trunk of the car. They were only traveling probably around five miles an hour. The creature came out of the woods directly behind them. It slammed it's large fists down on the trunk, making the entire back end of the car scrape the dirt road from the impact.

Joe punched the gas and got the car going as fast as he could without losing control on the loose dirt. This creature chased them for half to three quarters of a mile, tailing right behind them, nearly maintaining the same speed as them before it broke left and disappeared back in to the trees.

Aftermath

Upon arriving back at Johns residence, they inspected the car. The trunk was badly damaged and couldn't be opened. The tires were in rough shape from the impact. The under carriage of the whole back end of the car was caked in dirt and mud where it scraped the road.

Needless to say, between the pitch blackness and the urgency of the situation, no one was able to snap the picture that they went looking to get. No one involved in this incident will speak about it to this day other than John and he has only told myself, and maybe two other people about what happened.

Have you had an experience with the Michigan Dogman? If you have, please send me your story so that I can feature it here on Fright Fuel. 

What do you think about the Michigan Dogman? Is it fact or fiction? If it is real, is it some kind of mythical beast, or maybe just an undiscovered species of wild animal? Let me know what you think in the comments below.