Written by Denver Michaels



Encounters with upright canines, or dogmen, are rapidly spreading across the United States and Canada. Eyewitness reports can be found on paranormal and cryptozoology-themed websites, YouTube, and social media. The phenomenon goes much further back, of course, and in the 1960s, a predecessor to today’s dogmen was running loose in Frederick County, Maryland, about an hour-drive northwest of Washington, D.C.

News reporter George May asked, “What is 6 feet tall, has feet like a dog, a big bushy tail, and is black?” in a piece for The News, a Frederick, Maryland newspaper, on November 29, 1965. The answer to May’s question: a Dwayyo.

The first mention of the Dwayyo is thought to have occurred in the 1940s, but it became a household name in the Frederick area in November 1965 when John Becker contacted a local newspaper and claimed he was attacked by a Dwayyo in his backyard. Becker’s story has largely been written off as a hoax, as investigators were unable to corroborate his claims. After Becker contacted the paper, theyforwarded the report to the local police who tried to follow up with Becker. According to Sergeant Clyde B. Tucker, Becker could not be located for questioning, and worse yet, the address that he provided did not exist.1

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﻿Artist Ed Mull’s depiction of the Dwayyo as printed in The News (Frederick, MD) on December 1, 1965.

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Becker’s story may well have been fabricated, but that did not matter—the Dwayyo was on the loose in Frederick County. Reports were flooding in to the police and local paper from hunters and others who claimed to see and hear the creature.

On December 7, 1965, a “dog-shaped” animal was spotted chasing cows in the Jefferson area. A woman called the state police and reported the incident, and claimed that the animal in question was brownish, about the size of a calf, and something she had never seen before. The investigating officer found nothing.2

As reports of the Dwayyo spread, a Frederick newspaper received a letter from four University of Maryland students who claimed that they had spotted four Dwayyos on campus. After conducting research on the Dwayyo, the students—perhaps tongue-in-cheek—concluded it was a cross between a “Dway” and a “Yo.” According to the students, the Dway is a creature that inhabits the Upper Amazon. The Yo, they claimed, originated in China, but migrated to the West Coast of the United States in the remote past by way of the Bering Land Bridge. The students went further with their story: Long ago, the Yo and the Dway intermarried and formed a new species, the Dwayosapientherapsida australopitecusrexus.3

With sightings occurring at a dizzying pace, something had to be done. Students from a local community college organized a hunt scheduled for 5:00pm on December 8, 1965. Between fifty and one hundred students signed up and agreed to participate, but when the time came, no one showed! The hunted was dubbed a “complete flop” in the local newspaper. Were the students too afraid to confront the Dwayyo? One student suggested most had too many classes scheduled and could not make the hunt.4 However, it seems unlikely that so many students misjudged their schedules so badly. Whatever the reason for the no-shows, what is certain is that the proposed hunt failed to capture, kill, or even spot a Dwayyo.

After the mid-1960s, the Dwayyo craze dwindled away, but sporadic reports came in from time to time. Most notably, a Dwayyo was spotted in 1976 near Cunningham Falls State Park. In 1978, park rangers saw a large hairy creature similar to Dwayyo reports, also near Cunningham Falls.

Today, Dwayyo reports seem to have given way to “dogman” sightings—upright canines standing between six and eight feet tall, sometimes even taller. Maybe, that is really what the Dwayyo was all along—an early version of a dogman.

This story, and others like it, can be found in Detours Into the Paranormal: Atlantic City Road Trip,by Denver Michaels.

Notes

1. George May, “Mysterious Dwayyo on Loose in County,” The News (Frederick, MD), November 29, 1965.

2. George May, “Dwayyo Hunt Tonight,” The News (Frederick, MD), December 8, 1965.

3. Ibid.

4. George May, “Dwayyo Hunt Flops,” The News (Frederick, MD), December 9, 1965.