I hope you are doing well. Last winter when it was quite cold outside my wife and I were sitting in my study watching TV it was around 9:30pm. The dogs were kenneled for the evening and the house was secured for the night. Over the TV show we were watching we heard a howl that sounded like it came from the other end of the house outside.  We both looked at each other and said, "Did you hear that?".  I said could "it be the dogs?". My wife quickly got up and went to the laundry room and both dogs were out cold sleeping in their kennels. I checked our security cameras and found nothing and nothing had set those off on that end of the house to record. 

It's been a fairly quiet spring and summer around the house other than the usual my wife encounters, the wood knocks and woods going silent. The woods going silent happens more than my wife would like, it's unnerving when even the insects go silent, still, she's still a skeptic.  I did have her Mom approach me about hearing something in the woods near one of the corners of her yard.  She's lived there nearly forty years and seen about every animal that Kentucky has to offer, including the "they don't exist" via the game warden, mountain lions.  Let me try and describe her place.  Her house and its yard sit up high and on three sides at the edge of her yard it drops off to various degrees anywhere from a gentle slope to eight- or ten-feet embankments. Then you just have woods for miles and miles in those directions. The last side of the house faces the direction of my house and our road.  

She said in one corner of the yard and it's one where there is a game trail and there is a steep drop off of eight to ten feet, she said she keeps hearing something in the wood line in that area but can never see it or figure out what it is.  I cut grass in that area and went over there and looked around and the game trail is well used. Also, there is an area where the vegetation is crushed down, so something is in that area I don't know what. We do have some massive bears in the area.  I was looking around the area for tracks and there are various tracks from critters that are quite normal.  However, I ran across this one (pictured above) and I can't decide if it's nothing or a track.  I thought I would share it with you and like the old commercial from the 1970s-80s in the NFL, "You Make The Call."

As recently as three weeks ago Mom, my wife, and I were sitting out eating dinner on the deck and talking and as dusk approached, we started hearing noise in that area of the yard. Her Mom looked at me and said do you hear it and I said yes, I have listened to it work its way in from the woods. I didn't turn and look and neither did she but I tried to look out of my peripheral vision but saw nothing.  I have seen similar indentions near her house in her shrubbery from time to time when I am cutting her grass.  She recently put up a camera security system and this may slow down anything that's happening.  Will see.

First, thanks for shooting me over the email. I always look forward to your updates. As for the possible track image, I really don't know what to make of it. In one way it looks like a deer scraped the ground but deer don't have toes. Then I think, could we be looking a some kind of marks made by a hand? So, unfortunately, I can't "make the call" on this one. I would suggest you look around in the area a little more and maybe you will have some kind of track that is more defined. We can also hope that the security cameras catch whatever it is and that we can identify it. 

Can't wait until the next update on this.