Black dogs of northern England - myth or ongoing activity?

So I've been reading about Black Dog folklore, particularly the ones reported across Yorkshire and Lancashire historically. Spring-heeled Jack's cousin, basically. Giant black dogs with glowing eyes, appears during dark nights, leaves no tracks, etc.

My question is: are these purely folklore from medieval times, or is there actual ongoing activity? I've found sporadic modern reports (1950s onwards), but nothing systematic. Has anyone in the northern regions actually encountered something that fits this description?

I'm trying to understand if this is a genuine cryptid that's still around, or just a really persistent cultural myth that people retroactively apply to normal animal sightings. What's the consensus here?

There's definitely something to the Black Dog phenomenon, but I reckon it's misidentification coupled with folklore confirmation bias. You see a large dog in poor light on a dark night, your brain fills in the "glowing eyes" bit because that's what you expect to see. Happens all the time.

I reported a sighting to Quirk about three years ago - encountered something on the Pennine Way near Hadrian's Wall around 4pm on a November afternoon. Massive black shape, easily the size of a horse, moving wrong. Like its joints bent at angles they shouldn't. It disappeared behind a rock and when I went to look, there was nothing there. Tracks in the mud were ambiguous. Still don't know what I saw, but it wasn't a normal dog.

I'm trying to understand if this is a genuine cryptid that's still around, or just a really persistent cultural myth

Why not both? Folklore often has a kernel of truth. Something genuinely anomalous happens, it gets embellished over generations, becomes myth. But the original encounter was real. The Black Dogs might've been a real phenomenon that's either become rare or evolved somehow. Worth investigating seriously rather than dismissing as superstition.

The consistency of reports across different regions and centuries is interesting. You see that pattern with a lot of cryptids. Doesn't prove anything on its own, but it suggests people are encountering something that they're all interpreting the same way. What that something is remains unclear.