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The Minnesota Dog-Man is an alleged cryptid sighted in various Minnesota counties. It is similar to the Michigan Dogman and The Beast of Bray Road. It could very well be the same type of creature.

Dogman
Dogman by xilrion d9xw7tz-fullview

Otter Tail County[]

In one of the early months of 2009, a man reported seeing a dogman near Fergus Falls in Otter Tail County. Here is how he described the encounter.

"I'll start off by saying that I have never believed in any of these sort of creatures, but I saw something in early 2009 that really disturbed me and is making me change my mind. I was not under the influence of any drugs, and I have better than average eyesight, and the lighting was nearing sunset, but I was still able to see clearly. So, I'll get this underway and explain my story and maybe someone can shed some light on this for me. 
I live in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, which is in west central Minnesota, about an hour drive from Fargo, North Dakota. My mother-in-law lives out in the country, about 3-4 miles out of Fergus Falls, and I was staying there while my wife and her mother went shopping in town. They called me, and asked if i wanted to go to a 7PM movie. So, I left the house at about 6:30pm-6:45pm to meet them at the theater. 
About 2 miles from their house on a country road known as the Wendel Road, along the Mistinka River, I saw 3 white tail deer. 2 of the deer were rather small, probably just yearlings and a larger doe, who I assumed was their mother. Me being an avid hunter, lover of wildlife, and future Wildlife Biologist, stopped to look at the deer. I should also mention that I hunt in the area and have spent my whole life in the Fergus Falls area. The deer were following a small creek bed, which is in fact the Mistinka River, so there were hardly any trees, except for one. Maybe I didn't see it there because of the tree, but I just noticed something crouching behind the tree on my side of the road, looking at the deer, and to my disbelief, hunting them. It just sat there, looking at the deer, taking no notice of me, even though I was in my truck, no more than 40 yards away, with a clear view, with nothing obstructing my view of it. It had one "hand" on the tree that it was bracing itself with. What struck me as shocking was the fact that it seemed to be a 2-legged creature, and not a 4-legged one. Its "hands" appeared to have opposable thumbs and were rather slender and long, very unlike a wolf. The creature looked as though if it stood upright, it would be over 7 feet tall, with a protruding muzzle, broad shoulders, a slender waist, thick, muscular thighs, and being as there was snow on the ground, I couldn't see the feet. He was deep, dark brown in color throughout the body. After several seconds of looking at the creature in shock, the deer ran off. Then, something amazing happened. It looked right at me... As though blaming me for losing his meal. He just sat there, looking at me, and blinking, but not moving. This scared the crap out of me, so I hit the gas pedal and drove off. 
It was very dark after the movie, so I didn't much feel like trudging through the 3.5 feet of snow, with the possibility of a monster lurking in the area, who is currently looking for a meal that I scared off. So, at about 10am, I went back there and walked down to the tree. Under the tree, there was no snow, so there were no tracks that I could see, but leading up to the tree, there were 3 tracks leading in from my grandmother-in-law's field, which was hard, black dirt, and if you know what a Minnesota field looks like in late winter/early spring, you can't make anything out of the dirt. The tracks I did find were only about 6-7 inches in length, but were clearly K9 prints, with the exception of 4 toe-looking marks in the snow."
 

St. Louis County[]

The second story is from another unnamed man. He saw the creature in early September in the year 1999 on an Air Force Base in St. Louis County. He said that it looked like a dogman, here is the email he sent to a dogman encounter site.

"First off, I would like to keep my name confidential; just for the fact that this happened on an Air Force base and I don't know who reads this stuff. This happened sometime in September of 99. I forget the exact date. It was early in the month though. It was between 2 and 3 a.m. 
I was a Security Forces Airman, working 3rd shift, on base patrol. Now mind you, this is an Air National Guard base that I worked at, full-time. It's on the North side of Duluth MN, next to the International Airport. North to northeast is nothing but large wooded areas. Forest areas. 3rd shift on the base was pretty boring (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and us full-timers worked a skeleton crew (usually only 5-6 of us, on 3rd shift). I was in the patrol truck, doing my usual rounds; checking doors and fence lines. Late at night, on the north side of the base was usually creepy enough when patrolling by yourself. Anyways; I was on this road, driving towards our baseball field, when my headlights caught a pair of eyes reflecting back at me. They were almost eye level with me, and I was sitting in an F-150. Around this time, a few of the guys had been seeing this huge buck around the property (like a 16 pointer or something around that size). I was about 80 yards or so, when I saw these eyes reflecting back at me. So, I'm thinking it was a big deer. "I gotta see this thing." So, I hit the gas and started speeding towards the field. This is where it all happened so fast. It's almost hard to explain. There was a little slope, behind the baseball field. It sloped down, probably about 12-15 feet, into a brush line. The brush went about 30 feet, then turned into a thick tree line. The brush was probably armpit high to me and pretty tough to traverse through, being so thick. As I turned into the baseball field and turned the truck towards the thing, I just caught the rear end of the thing leaping down the slope, below the line of sight of my headlights. The thing was no more than about 20 feet ahead of me when it leaped. All I got a look at was the back end of the thing, and it was big! The best I can do to describe it is to say that it was wolf/dog like in nature. It had a long tail (longer than 2 feet). The hind legs looked exactly like those of a dog; same with the back paws, but the paws were huge. They were bigger than my hands, for sure. The hair/fur was wavy, yet matted and thick. The color was blondish or very light brown. I didn't notice any gray in it, but this all happened within about 2-3 seconds. I sat in my patrol truck for a couple of seconds, confused and thinking, "I know what I saw, but it couldn't have been what I saw." So, I hopped out, with my flashlight, and M-16 rifle, and walked to the edge of the slope. All I heard was the thing running through the woods in front of me, heading in
a northwest direction. And this thing sounded like a moose charging through the trees! It made a lot of noise! That's when I started to get really scared; thinking, "If this is some sort of wolf or whatever it could be, my M-16 isn't going to do a thing to this animal." So, I jumped back into my patrol truck as fast as I could and headed back to the S.F. headquarters. 
I never told any of the other members about this, for fear of ridicule or being called crazy. There is no way I misidentified this thing! I'm a trained observer, an avid hunter and have worked with animal rehabilitation, with the MN DNR, in the past. I know my animals and the North Woods extremely well. I saw exactly what I saw. And that was the back end of a large wolf/dog thing, that basically had its eyes level with mine, while I was in a patrol truck. The back end was definitely much larger than any of the largest deer or black bears I've seen. The points I remember the clearest were the tail and back paws, as well as the texture and color of the hair/fur. This is my story. I have never told it to anyone, for fear of ridicule. I swear it to be the truth!"

Anonymous
Early September of 1999
2:30 AM

Todd County[]

Lastly, the third story is from another unnamed man. It was reported in the city of Long Prairie in the centre of Todd County. This is how the encounter went:

"I was visiting my grandmother up in long prairie, Minnesota. I was spending a week with her, mostly just to help her with whatever she needed help with. It was summer and early one morning before the sun was even up, I went outside to tend the garden and maybe even get some squirrels for some squirrel dumplings for dinner so I slung my semi-automatic assault rifle over my shoulder and headed out. I had just gotten me about 20 squirrels (my grandmother's place has a lot of squirrels!) when all of a sudden I picked up my last squirrel and then I saw something, just on the edge of the woods behind my grandma's property. I saw some humanoid dog thing. It never attacked me. It just sat there so I fired a couple shots at the creature, it yelped and ran off into the woods. I then went into the house and proceeded to call the local police department. They never found proof of what I saw other than a few pawprints so they claimed I just shot at a wolf. My grandmother was worried and confused by the events taking place so at dinner she sat me down and asked me about what I saw. I told her the whole story, strangely enough, she seemed to believe me, I showed her where I saw the thing and where I was when it happened etc. I never saw it again but I've otherwise gotten over the whole ordeal."

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