Been following this with interest from across the pond. We don't have Dogman over here obviously but the pattern you're describing sounds familiar - cluster sightings along specific geographic corridors. That's almost always significant in my experience.
The Great Lakes region sits on some serious ley line convergences if you look at the maps. I've been cross-referencing American ley data with the reported sighting clusters and there's overlap that's hard to dismiss. Whether that means anything to the creature itself or whether these locations just attract attention is another question entirely.
What I'd want to know is - are these sightings concentrated near water edges specifically, or more inland forested areas? Because that changes things considerably. Bigfoot activity I've tracked in Yorkshire (yes, we have our own hairy hominid reports, laugh all you want) tends to stick to treelines rather than open water.
Also worth asking: has anyone done a proper timeline? Sightings spiking in one year could mean:
Increased public awareness driving more reports, Actual population movement, Something environmental shifting behaviour
The awareness explanation is too easy and lazy in my opinion. People were reporting Dogman long before it became fashionable content.
Anyone got raw coordinates they're willing to share? Happy to run them against some ley mapping software I use. Might throw up something useful.