Philip Bishop

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Dogs Mark Tree in Maine as Their Holy Grail -- The Right One to Be Barking Up

I was about 50 miles from horror writer Stephen King's home in Bangor, Maine, in the coastal town of Baxter. Suddenly the morning sky paled and turned ashen. Then I saw it. Dogs. Dogs by the dozen, easing their way into this quiet town. I stopped my car and watched. I was a agog at the dogs.

I followed slowly. Like a rising tide, the dogs surrounded my car. I looked at my gas gauge. It was low. I wondered what they wanted with me. I've always been nice to dogs. But maybe not nice enough. Up ahead I heard barking. Lots of barking.

As I followed this canine cavalcade, I saw that they were all going into a single yard. The mailbox read "Earl Michaels."

The dogs moved roboticly, inexorably towards the Michaels' backyard. I don't know what possessed me, but I stopped my car, opened the door, pushing aside some of the dogs. To my surprise, I wasn't eaten alive. I was completely ignored.

In the Michaels' backyard, all the dogs, as if engaged in some ancient religious ritual, barked up at a stately old oak tree.

Dogs barking up a tree may not seem noteworth. But this, it turned out, wasn't just any tree they were barking up.

"These dogs believe they are barking up the right tree," said Earl Michaels, who I joined on his back porch. "They believe that oak is like no other tree in the world."

Michaels, who owns a dry cleaners, said the strange events in his backyard began three weeks ago when his mutt named Jeff began barking up at the old oak tree in the fifty-four year-old’s backyard.

“It isn’t just endless barking,” said Michaels. “It lasts for exactly 37 seconds at exactly 37 minutes past every hour. It’s so regular, people in town have started to set their watches by it.”

Michaels said at first he had no idea why the dogs were parading into his backyard, but then he was paid a visit by animal psychic Flora Wilson-Hucksler, who had read about his dog’s tale on the Internet.

“Jeff told me,” said Wilson-Hucksler, referring to Michaels’ dog. “He said it was the Holy Grail for a dog to one day bark up the right tree and, for a reason he can’t explain, that tree has turned out to be his tree.”

Wilson-Hucksler said, however, that some dogs she has spoken to denounce Jeff as a fraud and his tree as a fake.

“These naysayers say dogs were meant to bark up the wrong tree – that that’s what makes them dogs,” said Wilson-Hucksler. “They say that in thinking they are barking up the right tree, they are, well, barking up the wrong tree.”

Michaels said he is getting calls from across the country and around the globe from dog owners wanting to bring their pets to bark up his tree.

“You know the strangest thing?” said Michaels. “Not one of the dozens and dozens of dogs who have visited the tree have crapped in my backyard. Not one of them. How do explain that except something weird is going on here."

That is strange, I said. I thought maybe I should drive to Bangor and tell Stephen King about my day. I needed to get gas. It was getting dark.

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Dog Who Barked Up Right Tree Hailed as Messiah By Dogs Who Bark Up Wrong Tree