I decided to join my bestie Karen for a three-day stay at her grandmother's place on the Rez. Her Grandmother lives near a Place called Tuba City, Arizona. In the middle of nowhere but surrounded by rural homes.

We go to college together and I was kinda interested to know about the Navajo tradition. The first day we stayed, it was pretty chill...nothing out of the ordinary but then her Grandma (Not that old, around 67) said that a stray dog came out of nowhere and wouldn't leave. To me...it did act kinda strange and ugly looking. (Black, shaggy coat, looked like a mix between a German Shepard and a Lab)

That night, we were watching a movie in the living room (had big windows that looked out into the front where the cars are parked, nothing fancy) with the curtains wide open, Grandma was in the kitchen cooking dinner and we were watching a movie. Next to the window is a medium bookshelf and where DVDs are kept.

Karen went to put back a DVD we had just watched, but she freaked out because that stray black dog was staring at us through the window standing on top of the wood-box outside. Not something normal dogs do from my point of view or hers. (Usually, my dog, which is a house dog, scratches the door to be let in...Rez Dogs aren't housed Dogs, and Dogs inside houses are frowned upon in Navajo Tradition; Meant to protect the house and owner.) The other dogs seemed to stay away from it. Karen opened the door and yelled at it to get it off the box. It ran off behind the shed.

We went to Tuba City to get some groceries, came back to the house. The dog was nowhere to be seen, nothing unusual. Grandma went to visit some people so it was just Karen and me. About 5 o'clock we heard someone trying to open the door, both of us looked out since there had been no car heard and no dogs barking. Looking out the living-room window to the door and there was the DOG trying to open the door with its paws. Two paws wrapped around the brass doorknob, standing on its hind legs.

I thought that was...weird but wasn't really freaked out, Karen was. She opened the door and chased it off. Grandma came back later and Karen told her, Grandma didn't like what she heard. When we got ready to sleep, we slept in the spare bedroom since it had two beds. One window with curtains opened a little. We turned off the light, but there was a sound coming from on top of the roof.

Pitter-patter footsteps and scratching sounds and panting. It then sounded like it jumped off onto the large plastic water barrel they had. At first, we heard what sounded like barking, but as it grew louder, the other dogs seemed to be barking at something also. But all of a sudden, something was running around the house barking and it was no DOG...NOPE....it wasn't.

This barking sounded human, a deep male voice barking like it knew that 'we knew it wasn't a dog.

"Wuuuuff...wuff...wuff...Ruffff....Rrrrrrruuufff..........Arffffff....Arff Arff." Just exactly like that, adding the W's, R's, and A's. Then panting again by the window and we started freaking out.

Karen decided to (in my opinion was stupid) open the curtains to look out, there was the stray dog on its hind legs looking into our bedroom but this time, it stunk and what I thought were two black holes in the neck, another pair of eyes twinkled (think of those ugly glossy spider eyes starring at you) and the paws were deformed-looking hands with over-grown somewhat thick and sharp fingernails.

Again...both screaming and shutting the curtains closed, Grandma came running through the door and seeing it. The first thing she did was grab ashes from the fireplace, load three shells into the shotgun from under her bed, bless herself in Navajo, and went outside to shoot it. Yelling in Navajo about how the 'thing' wasn't welcomed there and to get the hell outta there, for it to linger somewhere else.

Them both being traditional, the next day they called a Medicine Man to come over and put the cedar in. He prayed over everyone with cedar smoke and an eagle feather, blessed the place...made us eat bitter herbs called 'Eagles Gull' or something, and gave me an arrowhead. Apparently, I needed to carry one for protection and a little pouch called Corn-pollen. Seems to work pretty well.

The Medicine Man said that the dog was a Skinwalker (Which in Navajo is a long word but I call them Yoshi's), the body of the stray dog (Which was killed by the Skinwalker) made an illusion so we wouldn't know it wasn't a real dog. He also said that Yoshi's tend to harm people by using some sort of human bone straw to spit at someone (think...spitballs only deadlier) and get human bones into them. Doctors couldn't detect it, but the Medicine Man that day pulled a piece of human skull out of Grandma's right shoulder, pretty big...about 2 inches long and 1 cm thick...it was real because we watched him pull it out of her...that was intense.