red eyes?

a few years ago i was out in my back garden (a large, rectangular lawn ending at a fence, behind which is a long drop to a small stream. the area backs onto a school football field, and isn't remotely rural i might add.) having a cigarette. it was around the 1am mark, and to cut out the dramatics, i suddenly noticed a black shape about 12 feet away from me. it was identical to what the silhouette of a large doberman might look like, which instantly made me think someone's dog had gotten into our garden.
it's whole body was facing left as i saw it, and at first it was sitting.
after a few moments, it slowly stood up - still facing left - and it's head turned towards me.
now bear with me because this will sound loonyville.
it had red eyes, similar to the normal green/white reflective effect you see when a cat looks towards a lightsource.
naturally at 1 in the morning, when alone in a dark garden with a red-eyed dog you're going to fall backwards through the door, lock it and have a bit of a panic. which i did.
but afterwards i spent quite a long time researching into two seperate areas - 'black shuck' sightings in wales (where i live), and also into the possibility of this just being a dog.
as yet i can't find any mention of a canine breed's reflective eyebits being red rather than the standard yellow/green/white.
as far as researching the black dog myths and dubious accounts, i can find plenty of sightings of this guy, and plenty more that look nothing like him. as such i doubt this was anything paranormal, just very odd.

i'm not posting this to start a black shuck discussion, but to find out if anyone knows anything about canine or canine-similar animals that posess red-reflective eyes.

...any ideas?

I know fox's eyes glow red, but they are fairly small and scrawny.

One thing worth considering is that you had a 'big cat' sighting. Though you said it was the shape of a doberman, it's still a good candidate.

There's been hundreds, if not thousands, of sightings of big cats in England and Wales. Also, I believe that their eyes can glow red under the right certain circumstances, though I'm not 100% sure.

Maybe it was your neighbor high with blood shot eyes and copmlete drunk that he ended up naked in ur backyard?

lmao! are you saying my neighbour's a werewolf? teehee!

hmm, interesting reply in regards to the big cat theory. i definitely can't rule that out, but i think i'll have to wiki and find some details about the reflective eyes to be really sure.

thx for the replies guys, much appreciated

Your from Wales as well m8....GOC...there have been a few sightings recently(couple of years to now)of big cats in Wales...your not down by Chepstow way are you..there were a couple of big cat sightings down there recently...they have been spotted as far north as Monmouth.

actually the sighting was back at my old house about 3 years ago in swansea. our next door neighbour had an incredibly overgrown garden and we knew for a fact there was a fox den there, as they regularly wandered through our garden.
but other than this, the area was only uhhh urbanly-wooded shall we say.
i'm not about to discount the big cat idea seeing as it's pretty much the only explanation we can all think of so far, but perhaps i'd better draw the creature and post it here so you can get a better feel of it.

the stomach was nipped in quite tight behind the ribcage, i saw no tail, it's back legs had the typical canine u-curve, and the ears were pointed and stood up like a doberman's. i got a damn good look at it, seeing as i was clanging with fear and couldn't move for what was probably only 30 seconds, but felt like a year lol

i'd definitely say this guy was canine, especially seeing as it had a long muzzle.

in fact, the more i think of it, the more spooked i get! not one to be a silly supertitious bugger, i'm loathe to admit i might possibly have had a black dog encounter

someone prove me wrong please!! /hides under the duvet

ok that description with the pointy ears sounds like a lynx...here is a link to the eurasion lynx

www.scottishbigcats.co.uk...

there have been numerous sightings of lynx in Wales but none confirmed by specialists...i think the pointy *doberman* ears are only seen in the big cat family by lynx....but IMO your probably looking at a fox...same ears.

My brothers dog has red-eyes when the light hits them. He's a cross-breed (we don't know what off, but he looks like a small Irish Wolfhound), but there's part hound in him somewhere. Maybe what you saw was an ordinary dog.

well i found this article about the mothman (unrelated, i know) that's dedicated to reflective red eyes click here to view

it seems that animals which rely less on light (i.e, highly nocturnal) have red reflective eyes. the redness is apparently caused by unabsorbed light.

i *wish* it could be explained away as a fox, but it really was a big guy. the size of a mastiff i'd estimate, maybe slightly larger, and the shape of a doberman.

now i know it's entirely possible it could've been a dog of some sort (the eyes threw me off that track), i'm going to try to debunk my own story with a bit of intensive doggy-style net digging.

...and i just realised how rude that sounds