Dan's dad's spooky Vietnamese dog story

Dan tells a story about his dad encountering a haunted dog.

Full liveshow: 30 October 2012 ~halloween special~    • ~halloween special~ (Dan's younow - F...  

Dan: Yeah, I asked my parents…because, erm, the thing is, like, I think I got my “I don’t believe in ghosts” vibe from my dad—
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: Because my— I-I-I feel like a lot of my similarities are from my dad in that way—
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: Because he’s—he’s a very skeptical, kind of science-y guy like that.
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: And I remember I was on holiday with my parents last year when I went to Sicily—
Phil: Mm-hmm.
Dan: —And it was like 2 o’clock in the morning, and my brother had gone to sleep, and we were just— and then I just decided to ask them and I was like, “Mum, Dad, do you believe ghosts? And the paranormal?” And I was like, “Or do you believe in aliens?” And my mum and dad were like, “Well yeah, there’s probably other life in the universe.”
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: And I was like, “Well what about ghosts?” And they were like: “Yes.” And I was like—
Phil: What? [laughs] Just “Yes”?
Dan: [laughs] And I was like, “Excuse me?” And then my dad was literally just like, “Yes.” And I was like, “Well, why?” And he was like, “Well, weird things have happened.” And I was like, “I don’t want to know.” And… okay, well one of the things, apparently — this is a story that my dad told me: My dad, erm, lived briefly in Vietnam, because he was— his dad, my grandad, was in the RAF, so they moved around with my grandad as he was put in different RAF posts around the world.
Phil: Okay.
Dan: So they all moved to, erm, Vietnam. This is only for like a year. And there was, like, a rice field outside the house, and, like, my brother [dad] and his uncle [brother] Christopher used to have bedrooms that looked out onto the field together—
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: And they said that during one winter, it would be really really foggy, and they looked out the window and there was just a dog just, like, staring at them.
Phil: Okay. A ghost dog?
Dan: I mean, there’s— No. There’s dogs everywhere. You know, just, like, packs of dogs. Wild dogs.
Phil: Okay. Yeah.
Dan: Phil: Yeah.
Dan: But there was just this black dog that was just staring at them. Like even though they were on the second floor, there was just this dog that was staring at them. And it just used to sit there for like 20 minutes, but it used to, like, run away whenever they went outside.
[more story that i can't type because it will make the description too long]
Dan: But then it was like a random night, when their parents weren’t there, and they heard growling outside the back door. And then the dog was just sat right outside their porch. Then they didn’t want to open it, ‘cause they’d get, like, rabies or something, but my dad opened the door for a bit, and then the dog just started barking like crazy. Like, it didn’t come in the house, but this dog just started barking at them. It was like it had gone, like, a crazy rabid dog. So my dad and my uncle were just freaked out as kids, ‘cause there was this crazy dog that was just barking and barking, and they said that it did it for like 20 minutes. And it just wasn’t there anymore. And then it, well, then it left. And then their parents came back and they were like, “Well, it was obviously just a stray dog; don’t open the door to it! It could bite you or something like that!” And then that night they heard, like, howling in the night, and they woke up, and the next Tuesday, the dog was dead in the middle of the field.
Phil: Ahhh.
Dan: They said that they just looked outside the window and the dog was just dead in the middle of the field.
Phil: Aw. That’s scary.
Dan: Yeah. But then, erm, they asked some woman, and apparently the dog was owned by the guy that used to live in the house.
Phil: Right.
Dan: So the dog used to come back to the house.
Phil: Ohhh.
Dan: Because that’s where his owner lived. So obviously, like, the guy died, and because it was in Vietnam, like, it wasn’t very organized.
Phil: Yeah.
Dan: And the dog was just let go, and it used to come back to the house, and then the dog was just dead, but it was in exactly the same place that it had always been.
Phil: That’s so weird.
Dan: Yeah. And they said that they were just, like, freaked out. They said that the weird thing was that they’d just look out their window at night, and then this dog would just be sat there staring up. Like, it’s not just— Imagine looking out your window into a cornfield, or rice field or whatever it is, and then just seeing a dog looking up at you! And it just— I’d be like, “Okay—”
Phil: I think like—
Dan: “Y’all needs to go; I’m calling the pound people.”
Phil: Looking out my window at a cornfield would be scary enough.
Dan: Yeah.
Phil: I’ve seen too many [??]
Dan: Never mind a freaky black dog that would go mental and then suddenly die.
Phil: No.
Dan: No. Fortunately he then moved back to England. [laughs] Where there were less freaky dogs. But yeah.