Names: Black Dogs, Shadow Beasts, Dog Fiend

The Snarly Yow is a strange creature－a hybrid of the paranormal and corporeal－that causes pain and fear in its victims without leaving any physical evidence. It is often confused with the Devil Dog and paranormal entities, like specters. Though rarely encountered by humans, the beasts can be found in the Shenandoah Valley, Blue Ridge Mountains, eastern panhandle of West Virginia, western Virginia, Tennessee, western North Carolina, northwestern Georgia, northern Maryland, southern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Snarly Yows were first documented in the late 18th century; the creature is believed to have originated from an unnatural union between a dark specter and an English Fox & Coonhound. In the upper Potomac Valley, a German settlement encountered a spectral being that looked and moved like a shadow, but attacked like a wolf; it also sounded like something they had never heard before, with nightly, deep, wet, snarling cries of “YAAR-woo-YOW-AH-woo-AH-yow,” that became its namesake. The creature remained in the region for several months, attacking not only the…