During the early 1980’s, a father and son were driving along a lonely country road near the Oregon-Washington border. The father would regularly work late at night, while his teenage son worked at a store nearby. As they lived some twenty miles outside of town, quite often the trip home would lead them along an empty, desolate country highway in the late hours when nary another car was seen along the ride home.

On this particular night, as they were driving along the most desolate stretch of road, as they rounded a corner, up ahead of them, in the gleam of their truck’s headlights, they saw what at first appeared to be a small horse standing in the middle of the road.

As the father brought the truck to a slow crawl to avoid hitting the animal, he and his son quickly noted that as the animal drew closer to them, save from its great size, the less the animal began to look like a horse. As they brought the truck to a complete stand-still, they could clearly see that the animal was actually very gaunt, had a long snout and was clearly dog-like with a shaggy, gray colored coat. As the animal crossed the road, it turned its head to look toward the truck. Opposed to having the reflective eyes of other animals that just seem to shine very brightly when blinded by headlights, the huge canine instead displayed a pair of sinister glowing red eyes unlike any the man or his son had ever seen. Almost as quickly as it had appeared from around the corner, the huge red-eyed dog then quickly bounded off the roadside and into the forest.

As the occupants of the truck quickly looked at each other in disbelief, the father quickly gunned the truck’s accelerator and drove away at a high rate of speed. As they passed the spot where the animal had leaped toward the trees, the son turned to look into the forest for one last glimpse of the animal, but the dog was long gone.

Though the two witnesses came to an unspoken agreement to never discuss the matter, the son later remarked that to this day, his father will speed up when he is driving this stretch of lonely road.

What on earth did they see that night; a demon dog or a shared delusion?



On a final note, it should be noted that although the above tale describes a gray coated dog versus a black one, many sightings of the Black Shuck in the United Kingdom also describe huge gray-furred canines with glowing red eyes.

When the British first settled Oregon in the the late 18th century, did the dreaded Black Shuck follow the first settlers half way around the world or is there a giant canine species, still undiscovered by science, prowling the ancient woods of the Pacific Northwest? Your guess is as good as mine.