# Strange thing in the woods



## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

So I am pretty level headed and am fine in the woods and am in the woods a good bit, but I had an unsettling experience the last time in the woods behind my house in the upstate of South Carolina.

We live in a suburban/rural area. A good bit of undeveloped acreage near us and the subdivision backs up to a decent creek/stream bed. So we have typical wildlife back there - deer, foxes, pileated woodpeckers (they need at least 75 acres per breeding pair for home range) etc.

But the last few times I have been out, I sensed something different and the dogs did too and it was an uncomfortable gut type feeling. Hair on the back of neck type stuff.

I saw two blackish critters - about 100 feet off and down in a ravine. First thought was deer - and they were definitely bigger than dogs or bobcats, but two things happened

(1) They took off - FAST - and were silent. I mean eerily silent. I don't think of deer running quietly through the woods and there was no flash of a white tail-and it was much more smooth in motion than a deer.

(2) Grim took of after it. He does not chase other dogs and his response to deer - I can usually tell his stance when he smells them (goes up on front toes - holds head up) but I have had several leap right in front of us before and he does not pursue - I have even had fawns (you know how they bed up and jump right up from under you if you get too close) leap up right up in front of him and he does not chase. THIS thing he chased and it took three calls for me to get him back. I have never had him do that before. And I have never seen him move so quickly. 

(3) I had put out a buried cadaver hide a few days earlier (just grave dirt, which I use rarely in training, but I am not going to leave anything else "unsupervised") and it was dug up and removed.

I am really kind of shaken - because of the tingly back of neck feeling and my gut - but common sense says it *had* to have been deer, maybe coyote (though I have not seen coyote around but have seen plenty of deer scat). I am actually toying with buying a game camera. Don't think I am going in those woods alone for awhile.

Anybody in the SE US have an experience like that?


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

It's called MoMo in this part of the country. :grin::wink:
Possibly a coydog? The average coyote in Mo is about 35 lbs but much larger coydogs are not uncommon.
Cadaver, cadaver material, as you know, is nothing more then "fixins" for most predators in this country. The game camera is a cool idea!
Last week here in Missouri a bobcat trapper found a mountain lion in one of his traps. VERY uncommon in the whole State but sightings are up in the past couple of yrs.


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## Erica Boling (Jun 17, 2008)

Bear? Did you see any tracks?


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## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

i'm kind of thinking cougar as well (they've definitely become more numerous here in nebraska the last 5 years)....but if so, usually we get 2 yr olds looking for new hunting territory, and they don't tend to travel in pairs. and i can see cougars maybe working into SC from the northwest maybe. hmmmm.....

game camera is a great idea. at least we can be fairly certain it's not the loch ness monster, lol.


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## Lindsay Janes (Aug 9, 2007)

I can't hear, but do boars move around quietly like cougars?


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Definitely not bears - too lean and graceful.

Cougars do come to mind-I did not go down and look -- logic is saying -- no, not two together and not in this area --I just decided it would be a good time to head home. Need to get my husaband or someone else to go down there with me.

The only time I have ever had the same gut feeling though was one I mentioned to a friend (she had about 300 acres, mostly wooded) and she said there was a bobcat on her farm that would follow you at a distance.

People around her do talk of panthers though....there was one trapped in NC not far from Charlotte a few years ago.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Any "exotic" pet fanciers in your area? maybe withing a 50 mile radius?


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> Definitely not bears - too lean and graceful.
> 
> Cougars do come to mind-I did not go down and look -- logic is saying -- no, not two together and not in this area --I just decided it would be a good time to head home. Need to get my husaband or someone else to go down there with me.
> 
> ...


Nancy if you google it, and I havent in a long time, but there have been panthers that did escape some years back and also sites of them in the area that you live in. There also just shortly north of you in the mountains, I heard a story of a SAR person coming across one in the mountains on either a active or training search, cant remeber which one it was. U have to remeber your area has been very much built up over the last three years or so, and much of there habitat is becoming extinct do to the heavy residential and commercial building forcing them into areas they usually wouldnt work for food and shelter.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Harry that is interesting. Since we have moved here, I have seen fewer deer coming out of those woods (usually we would see them coming up from the marshy area in the morning) but we hardly ever see them anymore. I do still see their scat

There is a large tract (over 1000 acres) on the other side of 417 from our development though. It is on the books for a new urbanism type development but has been completely on hold and is being used for a hunt club....so there is some habitat there as well (not to mention the heavily forested Horsepen and Gilder Creek floodplains)


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## leslie cassian (Jun 3, 2007)

Chupacabra?

Sorry, not really helpful. I would think that escaped exotics could be a possibility, as Bob and Harry suggested.


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## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

I was thinking chupacabra as well. According to the drunks in my county there are a lot of them. Perhaps you have some as well? 

Boars/wild hogs are NOT quiet.

Panthers are much more common than people realize.

Coydogs usually hunt in packs, at least the ones in the N.E do (did?). I did hear they have been seen changing patterns to ambush hunters.

Creepy but very cool. I dont go anywhere without multiple weapons.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

No hogs - that is a marshy area and it would be ALL torn up if there were hogs down there, I think. 

Grim's reaction to wild hogs and bears is hair going up on his back and he stays fairly close. His chasing it full out is what puzzled me. Like I said, he really does not chase deer (they create a flicker of prey response but t hen he ignores)...We were however "just walking" and he was not searching for training aids...maybe the gears shift in his head when he is working...though he is not particularly interested in farm animals either....Beau has spent a lot of training time around goats since they are a lot like deer. Grim ignores them, too.

I have too much to do to get my husband down there but I think we need to go down together in a few weeks (too much going on before then) and look for sign. Take the dogs ... put bells on them.

How much help is a gun - from all I have heard they are ambush predators and you would never know until they were on your neck. I have been thinking over time of getting a permit and carrying though I am not much of a gun person. But theres two legged predators in the woods too like that guy that killed that couple from Brevard, NC a few years back.


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## Brian Anderson (Dec 2, 2010)

Harry Keely said:


> Nancy if you google it, and I havent in a long time, but there have been panthers that did escape some years back and also sites of them in the area that you live in. There also just shortly north of you in the mountains, I heard a story of a SAR person coming across one in the mountains on either a active or training search, cant remeber which one it was. U have to remeber your area has been very much built up over the last three years or so, and much of there habitat is becoming extinct do to the heavy residential and commercial building forcing them into areas they usually wouldnt work for food and shelter.


Harry I heard for years about panthers being in Louisiana here where I am. I scoffed at it as being silly. I was going to a drilling rig about a year ago in a wooded remote location at night and actually saw something flash past my truck headlights. I couldn't tell what it was .... I wrote it off as a coyote or small deer. A few days later one of the guys working on the rig actually shot the thing. It indeed was a panther. Here in Louisiana we also have a pretty significant number of black bear. SC I am sure is probably similiar.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

you SENSED them?

They must be supernatural in origin then...


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## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

How much help is a gun? Probably more help than not having it. While we humans may not be able to sense/smell an abush predator, your dog probably can. He start acting like he's got the heebie jeebies start looking around for why. With panthers/ big cats, look up. Coydogs, bears, chupacabras (lol) look around on the ground. Some people carry pepper spray but while I am a nature lover, if its them or me I am going home and I know I can work thru pepper spray easily enough, and I am pretty sure a determined predator can too. Hard to work thru bullet thru heart/ head tho!


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## Brian Anderson (Dec 2, 2010)

mel boschwitz said:


> How much help is a gun? Probably more help than not having it. While we humans may not be able to sense/smell an abush predator, your dog probably can. He start acting like he's got the heebie jeebies start looking around for why. With panthers/ big cats, look up. Coydogs, bears, chupacabras (lol) look around on the ground. Some people carry pepper spray but while I am a nature lover, if its them or me I am going home and I know I can work thru pepper spray easily enough, and I am pretty sure a determined predator can too. Hard to work thru bullet thru heart/ head tho!


Mel reminds me of years ago. I worked for a guy who had way more money than he had sense. He decided he wanted a pet lion. So he goes out and buys a lion cub and builds this big enclosure in our shop. One of the guys that worked there thought it would be interesting to bring a big game bred pitbull up to meet the lion (through the enclosure of course). This dog was seriously game (had been in a box A LOT and it showed). He made it to the entry door leading in to the area where the lions enclosure was. The dog scented the lion at the door and squated down like a mule and wanted no part of whatever it was he smelled in that room LOL... Obviously the dog had never smelled an african lion but he somehow knew that it was something he couldn't handle. He said that was the first time he had ever seen the dogs tail between his legs and shaking at ANYTHING.


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

It’s a bigfoot. Haven’t you seen the hunting big foot show o tv? What I find funny is there used to be a bunch of big foot sightings every year for years. No one really ever got a good picture of one because no one really walked around with a camera then. Now that everyone has a camera and a video camera in their phone and carries them with them all the time no one sees them anymore.
Nancy youd ever think of retiring from this sars stuff. It just seems like you got more problems and issues than anyone you might have to rescue.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Brian Anderson said:


> Mel reminds me of years ago. I worked for a guy who had way more money than he had sense. He decided he wanted a pet lion. So he goes out and buys a lion cub and builds this big enclosure in our shop. One of the guys that worked there thought it would be interesting to bring a big game bred pitbull up to meet the lion (through the enclosure of course). This dog was seriously game (had been in a box A LOT and it showed). He made it to the entry door leading in to the area where the lions enclosure was. The dog scented the lion at the door and squated down like a mule and wanted no part of whatever it was he smelled in that room LOL... Obviously the dog had never smelled an african lion but he somehow knew that it was something he couldn't handle. He said that was the first time he had ever seen the dogs tail between his legs and shaking at ANYTHING.


I has three shaking and hiding dogs in my house when I came home once...a gamebred APBT, a fighting line Presa Canario, and a pretty solid Rottweiler...all hiding in various places and all looking pretty messed up...pitbull was visibly shaking in the closet...

I was like WTF? until I saw my roomies 5-6 foot Iguana laying on the couch....


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## maggie fraser (May 30, 2008)

We have had rumours for years over here in Scotland about panthers moving up and down the country, but sightings were always so sketchy.

Here is a short vid taken by a policeman on his mobile a couple of years ago..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5924329/Big-cat-filmed-near-military-base-in-Scotland.html


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## Tim Connell (Apr 17, 2010)

Chris McDonald said:


> It’s a bigfoot. Haven’t you seen the hunting big foot show o tv? What I find funny is there used to be a bunch of big foot sightings every year for years. No one really ever got a good picture of one because no one really walked around with a camera then. Now that everyone has a camera and a video camera in their phone and carries them with them all the time no one sees them anymore.
> Nancy youd ever think of retiring from this sars stuff. It just seems like you got more problems and issues than anyone you might have to rescue.



I was going to lean toward a Chupacabra myself, but Bigfoot seems to be causing issues everywhere these days, even up north in my neck of the woods. 

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120114/NEWS/120119959/0/FRONTPAGE


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Chris McDonald said:


> Nancy youd ever think of retiring from this sars stuff. It just seems like you got more problems and issues than anyone you might have to rescue.




Not sure.....yes health issues with an older dog....and some puppy questions.....the people I go after really have problems....they are dead. (and likely to attract scavengers) I don't go in the field on live searches but am a whiz on the mapping software.

I doubt I have more issues than anyone else. Some older dog health problems and one training problem I don't think is so bad. I just saw something really strange....


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## Brian Anderson (Dec 2, 2010)

Joby Becker said:


> I has three shaking and hiding dogs in my house when I came home once...a gamebred APBT, a fighting line Presa Canario, and a pretty solid Rottweiler...all hiding in various places and all looking pretty messed up...pitbull was visibly shaking in the closet...
> 
> I was like WTF? until I saw my roomies 5-6 foot Iguana laying on the couch....


LMAO those dogs where thinking WTF!!!!


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## Tim Connell (Apr 17, 2010)

Many species of animals have a lot of variation in color. Deer up here range from very light fawn, to dark chestnut, to almost gray/black in some cases. Add into this that the animal could have been wet, darkening it's appearance, it could be anyone's guess what it could have been.

Sometimes depth perception can be off, and an animal can appear larger or smaller than it's actual size, especially when "on the move". Add in the variables of ambient lighting, individual eyesight, and environment, not to mention seeing something for only a fleeting moment can certainly be factors in accurate identification.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Tim Connell said:


> Many species of animals have a lot of variation in color. Deer up here range from very light fawn, to dark chestnut, to almost gray/black in some cases. Add into this that the animal could have been wet, darkening it's appearance, it could be anyone's guess what it could have been.
> 
> Sometimes depth perception can be off, and an animal can appear larger or smaller than it's actual size, especially when "on the move". Add in the variables of ambient lighting, individual eyesight, and environment, not to mention seeing something for only a fleeting moment can certainly be factors in accurate identification.


we have a population of white deer not far from here...


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Brian Anderson said:


> LMAO those dogs where thinking WTF!!!!


funny thing was I always told him, dont let that thing out of your room, the dogs will kill it....

WRONG!


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## Gerald Dunn (Sep 24, 2011)

Nancy, you know what the doctor said about drinking and taking this type of pill [-X Just rest and get some sleep, take your pills and go to the meetings =D> The big bad thing will go away [-o<


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

I would have to agree with the panther story, only thing that bothers me is when a mountain lion has come around, my dogs were knocking on the door saying let me in! When I went out, armed, night vision, knives etc and tried to keep the dog with me she said no way and was back at the house. My friends said she was smarter than me. So chasing one has me wondering. Wearing a Moon eyed shirt with eyes on the back will keep them off you back, "fact"!


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

I have to add our horse were grazing in a different pasture & when I open the gate they ran on to the hwy. I followed on foot trying to figure out why they were acting up then the hair that use to be on my head but is now on my back stood up without seeing a thing. I scanned the area with a surefire lite and two big yellow eye were watching. I got right in the middle of that herd and as we moved it followed until my buddy who I called came roaring up the road. So be careful & if it attacks shove your husband in front but pay the insurance first. Seriously roll into a ball & stay together first. They don't like odds.


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> Harry that is interesting. Since we have moved here, I have seen fewer deer coming out of those woods (usually we would see them coming up from the marshy area in the morning) but we hardly ever see them anymore. I do still see their scat
> 
> There is a large tract (over 1000 acres) on the other side of 417 from our development though. It is on the books for a new urbanism type development but has been completely on hold and is being used for a hunt club....so there is some habitat there as well (not to mention the heavily forested Horsepen and Gilder Creek floodplains)


Yup know that area to some extent when I use to work that area but its been 3 1/2 years, it was the Lee Vaughn / East Georgia / water treatment plant that there were sightings of the unusual, we would role that way but of course nothing there, then it got back that there were folks that did have proof and yea they are there. Bear too on occasion. your safer in the five forks,west side,downtown areas, the northern part in the mountains your are subject to the snakes, bears and big cats. the southern end I would have to say game on too. I know you guys train the fence area, I would be careful if not on horseback.


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Brian Anderson said:


> Harry I heard for years about panthers being in Louisiana here where I am. I scoffed at it as being silly. I was going to a drilling rig about a year ago in a wooded remote location at night and actually saw something flash past my truck headlights. I couldn't tell what it was .... I wrote it off as a coyote or small deer. A few days later one of the guys working on the rig actually shot the thing. It indeed was a panther. Here in Louisiana we also have a pretty significant number of black bear. SC I am sure is probably similiar.


Yes alot of people think of SC and they think of beaches and golf courses, and hilton head, charleston and myrtle beach. they forget about the midlands which I would really worry much more then snakes, but the upstate / mountains of SC is loaded with surprises depending on what part you live in.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Harry Keely said:


> Yes alot of people think of SC and they think of beaches and golf courses, and hilton head, charleston and myrtle beach. they forget about the midlands which I would really worry much more then snakes, but the upstate / mountains of SC is loaded with surprises depending on what part you live in.


of course gators east of a line from augusta to columbia to lancaster........when you have to search water and swamps with a dog, you think about that.....but then louisiana is full of them too.


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

Nancy one day bigfoot is going to rescue you from the woods when you’re working. Maybe give you a piggy back ride out of the woods while walking your dog on a lead after you blow out your knee then fall and bang your head or something. Got to admit it’s a pretty funny picture. Maybe big foot is friendly? You know like dolphins


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Could be. I hear he hangs out with Don and drinks whiskey and sleeps on a pillow in his house. So if bigfoot is drunk I will wait for the helicopter to come get us, or maybe the aliens.

LOL I guess you don't want to hear about the 'haints' at Kings Mtn State Park.  

Seriously one spooky place at night. People actually do dump bodies there. (Big Revolutionary War site)


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## Chris McDonald (May 29, 2008)

Im from NJ our woods are pretty limited. I think im deep in the woods if I can’t hear cars. Ill google the haints thing 
I hear there are more than a few bodies in the NJ pine barons right next to the 55 gallon drums you find in the middle of nowhere.


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Chris McDonald said:


> Im from NJ our woods are pretty limited. I think im deep in the woods if I can’t hear cars. Ill google the haints thing
> I hear there are more than a few bodies in the NJ pine barons right next to the 55 gallon drums you find in the middle of nowhere.


LOL how do you think my ass feels living in the slow dirty south coming from the concrete jungles of NYC:lol:


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## Harry Keely (Aug 26, 2009)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> of course gators east of a line from augusta to columbia to lancaster........when you have to search water and swamps with a dog, you think about that.....but then louisiana is full of them too.


:lol: my bad I did leave out our prestigious gator breeding program here that has gotten out of control.


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