A couple had a real-life Scooby-Doo moment when their beloved pooch "went mental" near an old butchers shop that's said to be haunted.
Marc Mountford and partner Katie Morran, from Wirral, had been on holiday in their own "Mystery Machine" campervan when they passed the building in Llangollen, Wales.
Just then Cooper, the couple's 12-stone Mastiff, freaked out almost dragging Marc under a bus.
The incident was witnessed by several people in the town, some of whom ran over to offer help, reports NorthWalesLive.
“As soon as he reached the shop, he went wild,” said Marc, a historical engineer who works for Big Heritage in Chester.
“He was uncontrollable – I was so close to going under a coach.
“We had to get him across the road to calm down. But he was still shaking.
"He wasn’t making a noise but his tail was between his legs and he was clearly in distress.”
When Marc shared the story on social media, he was inundated with possible explanations.
Some people suggested dogs were able to “sense death”, others pinned the blame on supernatural causes.
The couple had travelled to the Denbighshire town for a two-day break in a campervan they have named “The Mystery Machine” from the adventures of Great Dane Scooby-Doo.
It was their fourth visit to Llangollen since acquiring Cooper as a pup – and each time they have witnessed the same strange behaviour.
“He always freaks out by the same shop,” said Marc.
“When he was younger he was easier to control but now he’s fully grown it’s different.
"This was the first time he’s dragged me into the street - when a 12-stone Mastiff starts pulling, it’s almost impossible to stop them.
“This behaviour is totally out of character.
"He’s a lovely dog and we’ve been past plenty of other butcher’s shops with no problems – especially if we pop in for a bone!
"But there’s something about this particular place....”
The shop, on Castle Street, was run by much-loved butcher Gwyn Davies until his retirement last year.
Since then it has remained unoccupied.
In common with many traditional butchers shops, it once had a slaughterhouse at the back – and some suspect Cooper sensed the animals’ deaths.
Old photos of Llangollen show carcasses hanging outside the shop. “Row upon row of sheep, cows and chickens, before Gwyn had it,” said one person on Facebook.
Another said: “(The) smell of blood, maybe it lingers?”
A third comment was: “He (Cooper) feels like he is walking past a graveyard with all the dead meat in there.”
This argument was torpedoed by others who pointed out that dogs are carnivores whose ancestors herded and killed animals for food.
Yet Cooper isn’t alone: some dog owners recounted how their pets wouldn’t pass other butchers shops in the town.
A Wrexham woman said her old Collie would refuse to go past a butchers in Barmouth, Gwynedd.
“My dog was the same!” said another.
“He nearly ran into the road he was shaking and cowed? He wouldn’t move, had to cross over!”
The debate turned to the supernatural when a former employee at Gwyn Davies’ butcher shop recalled tales of the cellar and an upstairs flat being haunted – a claim apparently backed by a local historian.
In fact, there is a documented ghost story linked to the business, as Marc and Katie were to discover in a strange twist of fate.
Among those rushing out to see Cooper’s commotion was a town librarian who vaguely remembered the shop’s ghostly past.
By chance, the couple met her the next day in nearby Trevor, and she promised to dig up the book containing the story.
In Tales of Llangollen: past and present, author Trevor Roberts recounted how, at 5am on an April morning in 1929, the shop’s then-butcher Hywel Edwards was walking to work: an early start was needed for the slaughtering of livestock in the abattoir at the back of the building.
In the moonlight, he recognised John Robert Lewis, the owner of a fishing tackle shop said to have been the first angler to have fished the River Dee in a coracle. On arriving at his shop, the butcher learned the grim news: Mr Lewis had died the previous afternoon.
Yet the butcher never erred from his story, saying he’d seen the late angler just outside his shop.
If not the ghost of John Robert Lewis, Cooper may have been spooked by something more prosaic.
One person pinned the blame on echoes emanating from a covered alleyway next to the shop.
“The canal bridge filled my brother’s old lab with apprehension,” he explained.
Another person concurred: “I had a dog that freaked out in a particular room in our house,” they said. “Was it a ghost? No. Turned out it was a noisy central heating pipe.”
Helpfully, one poster told Marc and Katie: “You need to call ghost butchers.” In fact, they don’t, as the Mystery Machine is already on the case. “It really is just like a real-life Scooby-Doo thing!” said Marc.
