MICHIGAN DOGMAN

Opening

On 1 April 1987 WTCM-FM in Traverse City put on an April Fool. Disc jockey Steve Cook recorded a song he credited to Bob Farley. The Legend. A seven-foot dog that stands up, first set in 1887 among Wexford County lumberjacks, then every decade on a year ending in seven. Cook has said he made the verses from his own head. It became the station's most requested record that spring. Then the phones: listeners who said they had already met it. A 1987 cabin at Luther with clawed wood. Two men on a road near Sparta who saw something grey and upright and allowed it might have been a suit. Cook added verses in 1997 after another Luther break-in and recorded it again in 2007.

Older Michigan talk of an upright canine exists in patches, including a 1930s Fortney story. Keep those as older water. The modern name walked out of a radio desk on April Fool morning.

The spine of the file is a song that then grew callers. Michigan Dogman is a 1 April record. It is not a hide in a Wexford freezer.

Timeline

Older patchy talk, including Fortney, as background only. 1 April 1987 Cook plays The Legend.

Spring 1987 requests and then calls. Luther cabin. Sparta road.

1997 more verses after another Luther night. 2007 another recording.

Later festivals borrow the song. That borrow is later life. April Fool morning is first.

Key figures

Steve Cook owns the verses and the later admission that he made them up.

WTCM owns the morning that put the name on the air.

The Luther and Sparta callers own nights that may not need the song.

Older Fortney talk owns water that is not 1987.

Physical and documentary trail

On the paper, April 1987 gives you four hard objects and no specimen.

One: Cook's song, played as an April Fool.

Two: his statement that the verses came from his head.

Three: listener calls that spring, including Luther and Sparta.

Four: later re-recordings. WTCM-FM, The Legend, 1 April 1987, is the originating tray for the modern name.

There is no hide. There is no 1887 lumberjack paper that matches the verses. There is no lab on the clawed wood that everyone signs as a dog-man.

I made it up completely from my own imagination as an April Fools' prank.

Competing explanations

A real upright dog the song only named. This is some of the callers. It has clawed wood. It has Cook saying he invented the verses.

A radio animal that then collected older fear. This is Cook's door. Has to carry callers who said they had already met it.

A man in a suit, as the Sparta pair allowed. Possible on a road. Not a hide.

Hybrid caution. A DJ wrote a song. Phones followed. Morning had no body in the woods.

Later life of the case

Re-records and festival shirts. I keep those on the later-life shelf. The April Fool play stays first.

Finding

Steve Cook played a dogman song on WTCM on 1 April 1987 as a prank he says he wrote from his head, and listeners then called with nights they said they already had. Believe Cook for the song. Believe the callers that they rang. A radio desk does not invent a request line.

What still will not resolve: a hide from those woods, or a pre-1987 paper that matches the verses. Either one would pin the name. The proving object is still the animal on a Michigan road, held by someone who was not adding a chorus.