Ghosts & Paranormal: The Phantom Dog and Horse by Donald Ryles

We all love a good story about a boy and his dog, like "Old Yeller," and we certainly love a good good horse story, like "Black Beauty." Well, here's a dog story and a horse story - with a twist. It's also a ghost story. The writer swears it's true...

Growing up in the south int the U.S.thirty or more years ago I, like most all kids of that time and place, had a swing in the yard. The one I had was not a metal swing set, but was a true old rope swing hung from a tree branch. I spent a lot of time playing on that old swing and in the field behind our house, which had once been a horse pasture many years before we had moved there.

When I was about eleven years old I had just discovered my love for music and since it was summer and I didn't have to get up for school I was allowed to stay out until well after dark, as long as I stayed close to the house. Many nights I would be on that swing until well into the night listening to my small transistor radio, as long as I kept it low. It was just me, the music, and a soft light from a distant streetlight.

One night about 10 PM I suddenly had the strange feeling that something was behind me looking at me, staring at me. I stopped swinging and looked back to see a beautiful large white dog with big dark eyes. He just stood motionless, no barking, no growling, no tail wagging, just strangely motionless. Not having a dog at that time but always having a love for dogs, I wanted to pet him. I turned around for only a second, to get up, and when I looked back he had vanished. I didn't hear him leave, but I thought he must have run away. I didn't think much about it and went back to swinging.

The very next night, at about 10 PM, he appeared again. This time though, it sounded like he had run up behind me quickly. I looked back and once again saw him just as before, motionless, looking at me with his big dark eyes. This time, for some reason, I had a slightly different feeling than before. I still wanted to pet him but for some reason, at the same time, felt slightly uncomfortable. Like for some unknown reason something wasn't quite right. I slowly got up to walk to him and he ran behind my fathers car and into the field behind our house. I was only a few feet away from him but when I got behind the car, once again it was as if he just vanished.

The third and last time he appeared was about a day or two later. He appeared just as before, but this time with a chilling difference. Once again it sounded like he had run up behind me and once again I turned to see him looking at me. This time though, I could see smoke coming out of his mouth and nose. The kind you see when it is a very cold winter's day and you breathe outside. It was summer though and, by far, too hot for that. His big dark eyes locked with mine as he stared directly at me and raggedly breathed the smoke for ten to fifteen seconds, like he had been running hard. Suddenly he turned and ran into the field. I did not try to follow him, this night, into the darkness. It was as if something told me not to. I quickly got up and went into the house for the night.

I never saw him again after that night and never saw him in the neighborhood, which I knew quite well. Especially which neighbors had dogs. I was a little scared and puzzled, but being a kid quickly forgot about it.

I didn't think of it again until after what happened with my father a few years later.

It was a summer evening just before sunset when my father looked out his bedroom window and came running through the house yelling to me to come and help him. I asked what was wrong and he said there was a horse in the field behind our house and he needed me to help him catch it or make it leave before it destroyed his garden. We both ran outside and into the field to see nothing wrong. No horse and everything was normal. I asked him exactly what he had seen and he said he had seen a huge white horse running through the field as fast as he could, like he was scared. He said the horse had run through his garden two or three times and he was sure it had been completely trampled.

We looked at the small garden, which was in the corner of the field beside the old pasture's fence, with tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc., about a 15 by 15 foot area. Nothing was out of place. I asked him once again if he was sure the horse had run through the garden and he assured me that he had. He "ran through it two or three times in a panic" he repeated to me again. We both looked even closer around the pasture and at the dirt in the garden, which was still soft from being watered only a few hours before, and couldn't even see a single hoof print or any sign that anything had been in the pasture at all.

As we stood there, both puzzled, I remembered about the big white dog I had seen a few years before that had run into the same field and I told my father the story of what I had seen and felt myself a few summers before.

©Copyright 2008 by AlternativeApproaches.com

About the author: Donald Ryles, a lifelong student of the supernatural and spiritual, and an award-winning poet, is the author of Hidden Secrets of Many, But One. For more information, visit http://www.drryles.com/.