A Monstrous Dog

From: chris Kane (xchrysk@compulink.gr)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Arcadia, Greece
Source: Form Submission

This is my father's only ghost story. He is not a superstitious person at all, and he was sort of embarrassed when he told me, in the late 1970's of this event that happenned sometime between 1946 and 1950. Even during his narration, he seemed puzzled from what had happenned before his very eyes. So, my father was in our family house, an old house of the early 1800's, on the mountains of Arcadia, Greece, together with 3-4 friends. They were hunting and decided to spend the first night at my grand father's house. They woke up early in teh morning, before dawn I guess, had coffee and breakfast, packed up guns and hunting gear, ready to go out. My father hurried down the staircase, he unlocked and opened the door for his guests, he walked out and right in front of him, he said he saw a huge black dog blocking his way out. He said the dog was the size of a horse. The monstrous creature looked friendly though. As soon as it saw my father, the dog moved sightly so my father could walk on the narrow path. My father of course, would not want to walk next to this unsual creature! He hurriedly turned around and entered the house, ready to tell his friends about the vision and the weird, monstrous dog. He entered the house, turned around again, to check out the dog before he would shut the huge door behind him, and the dog was not there anymore! iT had disappeared!

Now , this was not the experience of a person that was half asleep, terrified from unknown places or the dark, or in an eerie place. It happened as he was in a good mood, with his pals, just on the threshold of my grand father's house, a familiar place where my dad had spent all of his summers since he was a child. My father had fought in WW2 so he has seen corpses, horrible scenes, and he would not be terrified from just a vague shadow. Also, he was brought up in the countryside as a farmer, and used to walk in teh dark during nights through the woods, so he could tell the difference between a dog and a cow, or a horse!

My father never mentioned this story again. I thought I should send it to you and save it somewhere. Even, as he was telling me about the vision of the monstrous dog, he sounded embarrassed that he had to tell this impossible story, suitable for "superstitious" people. Have you heard of more ghosts of dogs, black dogs or huge dogs?