The Legend of the Bathroom Dog/The Licked Hand

“This girl who has a dog and every night before the goes to bed the dog is at the foot of the bed and she puts her hand out and he licks it and that’s her sign tha everything is okay  One night she goes to bed and the dog licks her and, but she senses that somethings wrong but um…. the dog keeps licking her hand throughout the night when she puts it out. So she hears something dripping in the bathroom but the dog keeps licking her hand. So she thinks everything is okay.  The dripping gets louder so she gets up and goes to the bathroom.  When she opens the door there the dog is… hanging. (It’s gross I can’t believe I’m telling you this. You never heard this before?)  And like the dripping is the dog’s blood. And like written on the mirror in the dogs blood is ‘HUMANS CAN LICK TOO’.”

My friend relayed this legend about a hanging dog in the bathroom one night to a bunch of my girl friends.  She says she heard the story at boarding school when she was younger.  She says her classmates would sit around and tell scary legends after lights out.  Further research into this story from the internet and I found that this legend has circulated as a email chain letter as well as has appeared in many films.  The story is often referred to as ‘The Licked Hand’ and has variations including one with dead parents in the closet or a hiking scenario. A version of ‘The Licked Hand’ can be found in the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Swartz a collection of spooky stories geared towards readers 9-12 years of age.

Annotation: Swartz, Alvin. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. HarperCollins. Reprint edition (July 27, 2010).