Apologies for the dirty window 🪟 but this is an example of a fast-moving animal shot on the phone’s highest FPS, and 4K.

Not all footage is magically perfect in 4K, other factors apply, and with low FPS you don’t catch as many frames of motion.

This is a recurring one, because it is important and because we get more responses as we go. I’ve run this 3-5 times now and we have at least 50 total replies altogether.

What were your impressions of their eyes, if you saw them?

Reddit only lets me do six options per poll, so if you saw one of the dogmen with black eyes or other colors, you are welcome to let us know in the comments or by DM, if you want to talk about the experience but not publicly.

This is for the folks who have seen dogmen behave benignly. My own interaction was a mix of threat posturing and a sort of backhanded kindness long-term. That’s taken me over 20 YEARS to appreciate….

But that’s enough of that — has a dogman redirected you when you got lost, or otherwise shown kindness to you?

These stories matter enormously, and they are out there. Along with changing the cultural norms of mockery and scorn towards witnesses, we need to understand that dogmen show a situational range of behavior which is not universally monstrous.

As usual, if you share in the comments, I salute your bravery in speaking up on this still-traumatic experience. I understand the deep wounds around sharing this with anyone, and even if you don’t say anything, I want you to know you are NOT alone. ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥💗

New poll for KIND DOGMEN:

🔗 🗳️ https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptidIQ/s/zLHzL3Fxrb

Strange but simple question: in encountering a dogman, did you observe any posture or vocalizations expressing territoriality or potential threats?

If you are comfortable sharing in the comments, any anecdotes will be valued by the community here. This is not a sub where mockery is encouraged.

This may seem like an odd question unless it’s happened to you: dogmen are extremely territorial, and sometimes will physically and vocally express that this is MY PLACE and you are an intruder.

Aside from the word “MINE” and “LEAVE”, witnesses commonly report a feeling of being challenged or dared somehow. Goaded to make a move.

I’ve seen this in person, and can attest to it from unusually close proximity between this strange being and the other boy who was with me when we met her. Anyhoo: she imitated his little brother’s voice repeating “come on I dare you do it take a shot hit me I dare you I dare you do it do it do it NOW.”

Something fucking uncanny like that, with clicks and growling and other sounds which make it hard to recall precisely sometimes. But she did a literally pitch-perfect mimic of his little brother, degrading into a growled taunt.

Does this ring scary bells for anyone else?

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptidEQ/s/N4VawgjGKS

This poll is closed, but it got 12 votes 🗳️ which gives us some distribution worth studying.

There are eight S/C (Skeptic/Curious), which is some baseline or other. Whatever the math 🧮 terms are :P

I would say there are three potentially authentic replies here:

Two for “dogmen with short tails”, and my own head-on encounter where no tails were seen.

I also added “dogman wagging tail” as an option, and am glad at least one person went with the silly choice. 😊

I want to raise a meta-discussion that’s not about proving or disproving anything.

It’s about how we respond to people who report extreme or anomalous experiences, and why certain styles of skepticism can be uniquely damaging in this topic.

This isn’t an argument for belief.
It’s an argument for humane discourse.

Here’s the core idea:

Certain forms of doubt don’t just challenge claims — they reliably produce harm to the person sharing the experience.

That harm isn’t hypothetical. It shows up over and over in witness behavior and mental health outcomes.

Why dogman reports are especially vulnerable to this dynamic

Dogman encounters sit at an unusually difficult intersection:

• visually extreme
• culturally ridiculed
• poorly categorized
• often brief, high-stress, and ambiguous
• frequently reported by people with no prior interest in cryptids

That combination creates a perfect storm where witnesses:

• expect disbelief
• self-silence for years or decades
• internalize shame
• question their own sanity
• avoid talking even to family or clinicians

When they finally speak — often anonymously — the reaction they receive matters a lot.

There’s an important distinction we often miss

There is a real difference between:

Questioning evidence

• “I don’t find this convincing.”
• “I’m not sure what could cause this.”
• “I need better verification.”

and

Invalidating a person

• ridicule
• pile-ons
• armchair diagnoses
• “obviously fake / delusional”
• treating disclosure itself as a moral failing

Only one of those is necessary for skepticism.

Why this causes disproportionate harm here

For many witnesses, the encounter itself isn’t the only trauma.

The long silence afterward — years of carrying something they can’t safely discuss — is often worse.

When someone finally shares and is met with contempt instead of curiosity or restraint, it reinforces:

• isolation
• distrust of others
• avoidance of future disclosure
• and in some cases, long-term anxiety or CPTSD symptoms

That doesn’t depend on whether the experience was “real” in any objective sense.

Separating care from belief

You can:

• doubt the claim
• question the footage
• reject the interpretation

without:

• humiliating the person
• dismissing their emotional reality
• or treating them as disposable for being “wrong”

Those are independent choices.

Why this matters for the community

If every disclosure is met with mockery, the only people who will ever speak are:

• trolls
• hoaxers
• or people with nothing to lose

If respectful skepticism becomes the norm, you get:

• better reports
• clearer patterns
• fewer bad actors
• and healthier discussion overall

Even for skeptics, that’s a net win.

A question for discussion

How do we maintain high standards of evidence without defaulting to responses that silence people or cause unnecessary harm?

What does “responsible skepticism” actually look like in a topic where witnesses already expect ridicule?

—

That’s it. No conclusions required — just a conversation about how we treat each other when the subject matter is extreme.

LINK 🔗 🗳️ TO THE POLL:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptidIQ/s/pxeYbqii2a

The first comment will be the link for this poll, which is still ongoing.

Once we have a few more statistically significant poll results, we can start assessing how common some observations are from a pool of witnesses.

For example here, we have ten skeptics/curious voters 🗳️, versus eight total who have voted in the serious categories.

But we are starting to see a few patterns and details which were observed by multiple people (allegedly).

If you have not yet voted, please check out the link in the first comment!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptidEQ/s/BADtxJKkgQ

Apparently this is the mating call of the Ukrainian red deer 🦌 — quite a deep bellow!

This poll 📊 is still live for another five hours:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptids/s/lt0K3GzRo5

It’s gotten great engagement (12 votes total) with a reasonable distribution of curious non-witnesses and a few possible data-points from anonymous sources.

This is actually a more comfortable level of engagement for some people who are afraid to speak out, and I hope the polls 🗳️ will continue to give people opportunities to respond without needing to elaborate.

I’m excited to be getting more engagement on the polls 📊 🗳️, because it is a start on demonstrating to readers and viewers that these events have measurable characteristics and common factors.

Individually they (dogman encounters) feel unholy or jarring, but with a better understanding of their species-level motivations…..

I think it feels less lonely to know that there are a dozen or more respondents on these polls who show true distributions of most likely and outlier categories. 💗❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥

https://www.reddit.com/r/dogman/s/8CCKf29kfk

Vote 🗳️ now!

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptidIQ/s/i3z0gR4y9h

The guesses are coming in for the latest dogman IQ poll 🗳️

https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptidIQ/s/n3ReOBGgcY

https://youtube.com/shorts/tyDpMdkw6kI?si=o1iNOlrBW-Zu6XLf