An account in Brown County, Indiana

My husband and I rented a cabin in Nashville. We just came down for a year to Indiana. About 11 PM we went to bed. Within minutes our dogs went nuts. My husband got up to check and opened the front door of the cabin. It is covered by a porch and it was raining hard. The porch light doesn't work so it was dark. He closed the door and told me to bring a flashlight and firearm. I ran out of bed and went to him by the door. He said something was breathing heavy on the porch to the left of the door. At this point it occurred to me that our dogs were strangely silent. Being Akita's that have seen bear, wolf, coyote, and lynx all up close in Alaska this was not normal. My husband slowly opened the door again I sure enough something was breathing very heavy just to the side of the door. It also smelled. It was really strong, musky mixed with soggy old carpet and wet dog We closed the door again while we chambered a round and I lit the flashlight and we did a tactical to the left where we had heard the sound. It was gone but wet foot prints that looked like they were made with soggy fuzzy bedroom slippers were across the floor. It had come across our front lawn and up the right side of the porch and across the door to the other side where we heard it. The prints were close together while passing the first window and the door and when it fled it did it in one step. The foot prints were alot larger then my foot in slippers which is a women's 9.5 wide. I wondered if it realized what chambering a round meant since we had opened the door twice and it stayed breathing heavy right on the other side right to the side where we couldn't see it. Dogs didn't scare it and us two talking didn't scare it. That would indicate it had had human interaction maybe with hunters before. Not uncommon with bears in Alaska. A lot of people will chamber a round not wanting to hurt it but ready to if it gets aggressive. They are smart and learn fast what that sound is. Another strange thing is that the dogs paced all night. They did not do this after confronting an 800 lb brown bear in Alaska..literally. They worked together and chased all of the above away from around the home. We lived in a cabin off the grid. Not sure if we have a stinky homeless person wearing bedroom slippers living in the woods but it was a very strange occurrence and my husband was career Ranger/SF. Not one to let his imagination run wild. We were stumped. The dogs (two of them) pooped in the cabin. Something dogs are known to do when frightened and these dogs are well housebroken.