TURNER - A dead animal found beneath power lines off Route 4 last month was 100 percent dog, according to the final DNA analysis completed Friday. It was not a werewolf. It was not a mutation. It was not some exotic species unknown to mankind.

It was a dog. And not even a dog-wolf hybrid, as many had guessed.

"There are no traces of wolf in this animal," said Dr. Yuri Melekovet, laboratory director at HealthGene Corp. in Toronto. "There would have been evidence of that in the genome."

There was no trace of human in the DNA or of something extraterrestrial either, Melekovet said. The so-called mystery creature that galvanized the community and the rest of the country last month was unremarkable in its lineage.

It remained unknown Friday what kind of dog the animal was. There are tests to make such determinations, but they are extensive, costly and time-consuming. Melekovet believes such tests would be irrelevant.

"If you say this is a half-dog, half-human, people will say, 'Wow!'" he said. "If you say this is a dog, they won't care so much."

The findings will likely result in an echo of "I told you so" across the area. Since the strange-looking animal was found Aug. 12, many have insisted the beast was nothing more than a common dog. They did so in the face of those who believed the dead animal was the mystery creature that has been startling people in Western Maine for more than a decade.

If there was any consolation for believers Friday, it was that the real creature may still be out there, alive and elusive as ever.

"The creature still in the Central Maine woods remains the real mystery beast, and the poor dead dog hit by a car on Route 4 was the shadow pretender," said cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who examined the Turner animal and declared it a dog two weeks ago.

"Of course it was a dog," he said. "But that dog story became a worldwide media event and is already a major candidate for one of the top 10 cryptozoology stories of 2006."

Others simply lament the passing of a wild dog that likely spent its days and nights struggling for survival in the Maine woods.

Tom Merriam, a wildlife photographer from Windham, said he is absolutely certain he encountered the dog in the Turner woods on two occasions this summer. Merriam and dog met up on a tote road two months ago and ended up sharing a ham-and-cheese sandwich after an initial standoff.

"The dog came out on the tote road just as I was heading in," Merriam said. "He stood there and looked at me, and I looked at him. I have to say, it gave me the willies because of those blue eyes. It was certainly an interesting-looking dog. There's no doubt about that."

It was that interesting look that made the dog a celebrity, albeit a dead one. When the animal was first discovered, the woman who found the carcass took photos of it. Those photos ended up on television news stations and countless Web sites across the world.

Michelle O'Donnell, who took the photographs, said she saw the beast a week before it was struck by a car and killed. And she insisted, like others, that it looked like no dog she had ever seen.

Merriam, however, determined the animal to be a dog after just a few minutes of staring it down in the Turner woods. He gave the animal half of the ham-and-cheese sandwich and watched as the dog timidly approached it.

"He jumped back at first, but then he wandered over and ate it," Merriam said. "I couldn't get him to come any closer."

Merriam said the dog was not wearing a collar and that one of its ears was torn, indicating the animal had been running wild and scrapping with other wild creatures. Over time, Merriam developed admiration for the beast.

"It's a tough place for a dog out there," Merriam said. "You have to be tough to survive."

Merriam said he saw the dog again while photographing from a tree stand. The dog paused on the ground beneath him, looked up a moment, and then went on his way.

According to Coleman, the cryptozoologist, the hunt continues for the real mystery beast. The hype about the Turner animal at least brought focus to his profession and resulted in lively debate among the local population.

"This was no hybrid, no mutant, no mystery," Coleman said. "This was a case where international cryptozoology triumphed, where a creature was recognized as nothing bizarre, but also acknowledged as not the mysterious one that previously had been sighted."

In other words, the truth is still out there.