Would Your Dog Eat You if You Died?

June 23, 2017 12:02 PM

In three separate cases, dead owners were eaten to the point of decapitation, and they all involved German shepherds. Still, for all we know, a Pomeranian or Chihuahua would tear a head off if it could. ... Even hamsters and birds have been known to scavenge on occasion. (SL National Geographic)
posted by Bella Donna (81 comments total)

Look at it this way: if you are what you eat, then your pet is a ticket to reincarnation.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:11 PM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Obligatory
posted by Thorzdad at 12:12 PM on June 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

I can assure you, a Pomeranian could definitely tear off your head.
posted by pxe2000 at 12:14 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

So I was wondering the other day, "What is the exact mathematical opposite of a Johnny Wallflower?" Now I know.
posted by Etrigan at 12:17 PM on June 23, 2017 [34 favorites]

To be fair, if cats had the means/opportunity, they wouldn't even wait until you were dead.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:19 PM on June 23, 2017 [31 favorites]

::cat pushes glass off of table::
::cat considers::
::cat pushes grandmother down stairs::
posted by FatherDagon at 12:24 PM on June 23, 2017 [48 favorites]

Then again, in one case reported in 2010 in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, a woman died of an aneurysm and was found the next morning on the bathroom floor. Forensic testing revealed that her dog had consumed much of her face, while her two cats hadn’t touched her.

Well of course they wouldn't go near it after the dog got slobber all over their dinner. Cats have standards.
posted by FatherDagon at 12:26 PM on June 23, 2017 [22 favorites]

Meh. A starving animal will eat anything. Dogs are pack animals and scavengers... it doesn't surprise me that an isolated, hungry dog would eat a corpse.

"In 24 percent of the cases in the 2015 review, which all involved dogs, less than a day had passed before the partially eaten body was found. What’s more, some of the dogs had access to normal food they hadn’t eaten."
posted by FatherDagon at 12:28 PM on June 23, 2017 [36 favorites]

::cat pushes grandmother down stairs::

So Sweet. She's just trying to protect her.
posted by bonehead at 12:30 PM on June 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

I don't really get why I'd dread this. I'd be dead in this scenario - and my cats would need food. If eating me holds them over until someone notices, then I hope they eat me. They'd probably starve, though - they struggle to eat anything that's not paté.

I'm kind of feeling smug about reported cases mostly being dogs, though. The lonely old cat lady who gets eaten by her cats is one of those sexist stereotypes that gets on my nerves, so, hah.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:34 PM on June 23, 2017 [21 favorites]

What’s more, some of the dogs had access to normal food they hadn’t eaten.

A dog's "normal food" isn't Puppy Chow.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:34 PM on June 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

Possibly the most surprising case, reported in 2017 in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved an elderly woman who was partially consumed by her goldfish. Due to the length of time she was submerged in the fish bowl prior to discovery, forensic testing was unable to determine how she actually died, or if, in fact, she was already dead at the time the fish began to consume her. Also undetermined was how she came to be submerged in the goldfish bowl in the first place, and whether the fish were in any way responsible.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:45 PM on June 23, 2017 [59 favorites]

😱 THESE ARE LIES PROMULGATED BY BIG CAT
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:52 PM on June 23, 2017 [33 favorites]

for all we know, a Pomeranian or Chihuahua would tear a head off if it could

"My neighbor Mrs. Lowe passed away last night, please see that the remains of her remains are taken care of. Would you like a dog? He is paper trained and well behaved regardless of his actions last night which you can't really blame him for."
posted by Flannery Culp at 12:52 PM on June 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

I feel certain hippybear had a hand in this
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:53 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

To be fair, if cats had the means/opportunity, they wouldn't even wait until you were dead.

Cats do wait until you're dead, just not much longer. A detective used to post on Reddit about his more interesting cases, with one of them a classic elderly cat lady who passed a few days before anyone except her cats noticed. She was noticeably diminished by the time the cops did a welfare check on what was left of her.
posted by Blue Meanie at 12:58 PM on June 23, 2017

Came for the X-Files/Queequeg reference, was not disappointed
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:06 PM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Obligatory #2?
posted by Guy Smiley at 1:07 PM on June 23, 2017

they're good dogs Brent
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 1:11 PM on June 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

Cats, dogs and other pet animals don't have the kind of interiority where they are all "this body that isn't moving and smells different from my human and smells meatily dead is actually my human so I should not eat it". They're not eating human bodies because they are like "grar, I long to kill my humans and eat them", they're eating human bodies because human bodies are dead meat that is right there. Your relationship to your pet is, what is the word, emergent from your interactions. No actions, no relating. Humans have powers of abstraction, so we don't just see dead bodies as empty of personhood, but that doesn't mean that the body actually has a personhood to be offended.
posted by Frowner at 1:11 PM on June 23, 2017 [28 favorites]

Well, my dogs are constantly tasting me. It's no surprise that they'll finally dig in when I'm dead.
posted by Splunge at 1:16 PM on June 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

I mean, I appreciate the fact that they waited at all.

Good dogs. Good dogs...
posted by Splunge at 1:17 PM on June 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

I think there's a false framing going on where a dog is thought of having exactly one owner, and their loyalty is to that human. It's not true at all. The dog lived because it had vets, it had pet food, it got to ride in cars that were made by other people, because other people make and enforce laws that protect animal rights, and all sorts of other social interconnections. The social question is if the dog's owner dies, and the dog eats their face off, who will want to keep this dog? The next of kin of the deceased?

So obviously what's needed is genetic breeding of dogs that obey the societal contract better. The world is changing, and "man's" best friend can change with it.
posted by polymodus at 1:19 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Cats, dogs and other pet animals don't have the kind of interiority where they are all "this body that isn't moving and smells different from my human and smells meatily dead is actually my human so I should not eat it".

My cat is more like "He is still asleep and I want my breakfast therefore he is breakfast" and proceeds to try and peel my skin off my head with her tongue. She also likes to put her paw on my jugular veins and just gently stab with her claws just to remind me who is boss.

So I don't think in cats it is about interiority so much as it is sociopathy.

In dogs I would put it down to dumbass over enthusiastic attempts at revival.
posted by srboisvert at 1:22 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Obligatory #3
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:23 PM on June 23, 2017

Honestly, I hope my pets would eat my corpse rather than starve to death, if that's what it came down to.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:30 PM on June 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

So what this is saying is that when your dog licks your face, he's basically just testing the waters...?
posted by Mchelly at 1:31 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

So what this is saying is that when your dog licks your face, he's basically just testing the waters...?

Tasting to see if the seasoning needs adjusted.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:32 PM on June 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

He's basting you with amylase.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:34 PM on June 23, 2017 [11 favorites]

Everyone posting about how they hope their animal eats them rather than starves to death didn't read the article.
posted by agregoli at 1:36 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Well, the article puts it forward as this huge fear of pet-owners, that they'll be eaten some day. I think saying that you'd prefer to be eaten than have your pet starve is a reasonable response to that, even if most of the article is about pets eating owners in much less dire circumstances.

(I'm reminded of a comedy bit from somewhere:

"You *ate* three of your fellow plane passengers!"

"What was I supposed to do? We were trapped, with no prospect of rescue."

"You were stuck on the runway! For forty-five minutes!")
posted by Four Ds at 1:49 PM on June 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy Dog owner: "Who's side are you on anyway?"
Madonna as Breathless Mahoney Dog: "Same side I'm always on. Mine."
posted by klanawa at 1:51 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Perhaps, since cats are predators who target fairly small prey, it takes them longer to figure out that we are made of meat. I don't think I would much mind being eaten by my pets, if I had any. They are animals, after all, not actually people, and I would be dead.

Mind you, I'm seriously reconsidering having recommended that a friend call her new kitten Hannibal now.
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:51 PM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

So my neighbors include a past Medical Examiner and the current one, and over dinner we (I don't know how) started discussing a recent case where a deceased woman was found in her home with four of the most vicious dogs the responding law-enforcement officers ever encountered. He mentioned that it will take a forensic autopsy to determine whether she was dead before the dog(s) ate at her.
posted by achrise at 1:53 PM on June 23, 2017

I have two German shepherds, so in answer to the post title, according to the article, yes, my dogs would eat me if I died.
posted by shmurley at 1:58 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, well, on the bright side, think of how much worse it would be if any part of your body squeaked.
posted by Mchelly at 2:00 PM on June 23, 2017 [45 favorites]

they're good dogs Brent

and well fed
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:11 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Everyone posting about how they hope their animal eats them rather than starves to death didn't read the article.

All of the evidence in the article (the different consumption patterns between scavenging dogs and just-orphaned dogs) suggests to me that this is a ritual consumption meant to shepherd the soul of the fallen owner into a higher plane of being, which really only makes me more supportive of the notion of my dog eating my face not fifteen minutes after my purchase of the proverbial farm.
posted by invitapriore at 2:13 PM on June 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm not worried - I'm training my dog with this excellent handbook called To Serve Man
posted by moonmilk at 2:14 PM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

I'm not worried - I'm training my dog with this excellent cookbook called To Serve Man.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:20 PM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

When I die, I'm donating my body to Science Diet.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:28 PM on June 23, 2017 [32 favorites]

Perhaps, since cats are predators who target fairly small prey, it takes them longer to figure out that we are made of meat.

The key factor there isn't the "small prey" part, it's the "predator" part. Cats are hunters. Dogs are scavengers. Of course scavengers are more likely to eat something/someone they themselves did not kill.
posted by dersins at 2:30 PM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Darn it, if only I had my old Dynamite magazines, I could prove they addressed this issue with their Lorne Greene Alpo parody.
posted by lagomorphius at 2:44 PM on June 23, 2017

Everyone posting about how they hope their animal eats them rather than starves to death didn't read the article.

I read it - and my comment actually responded to things in the article, so. Maybe relax your RTFA trigger finger.

Well, the article puts it forward as this huge fear of pet-owners, that they'll be eaten some day. I think saying that you'd prefer to be eaten than have your pet starve is a reasonable response to that

Exactly. I know that there probably some delusional pet owners who insist it would never be their Fluffy, but putting it forward as this huge fear is just an angle to drive clicks.

People who joke about cat ladies being eaten, for example, often seem to be focused on how it shows cats aren't "loyal" - like having not having human-like "loyalty" makes them bad. I think discomfort with it is more about their beliefs about their pets being violated. I don't think that's really fear exactly.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:49 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you think about it; how much time dogs spent hovering around human encampments, and what people tended to do a little distance from their encampments, you will realize like I have, what dogs diets consisted of for most of their association with humans. And I'm not talking faces.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 2:51 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Alpoo?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:53 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

I note the article has a slide show of various dogs identified by breed. Are those mug shots?
posted by rtimmel at 2:54 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

To my cat, nay waterbrother; I say grok in fullness my water of life.
posted by Capricorn13 at 2:58 PM on June 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

My response to TFA is to say that our dog expresses his love by eating what he loves. He loves his bed, he eats it. He loves his plush toys; he eats them. Why would I be any different?
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 3:00 PM on June 23, 2017 [14 favorites]

Life is a buffet. Eat the juicy parts first.
posted by bigbigdog at 3:28 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Could this be why Trump has no discernible pets?

When I saw the article this morning, I thought, "Just was MetaFilter needs, pets who eat their newly dead owners!" Many thanks for the goldfish reference, It's Raining Florence Henderson. It's so creepy. I'm envisioning a team of smart, scrappy goldfish carefully laying trip wires. Was the goldfish reference in the article? I totally missed it first time around.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:32 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is anecdotal, but, a friend of mine did body removal for a time. Being me I asked if he ever saw evidence of animals eating their owners. He told me, emphatetically, no. In fact often the animals were deeply disturbed and cowering in a corner when he and his co-worker entered a residence to remove the body. Particularly the cats.
posted by Ashwagandha at 3:41 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's distinctly possible that the goldfish reference was fake news. I'm not really sure, to be honest. My goldfish dictated the whole bit to me, and I was frankly too terrified to challenge their sources.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:05 PM on June 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

"You *ate* three of your fellow plane passengers!"

"What was I supposed to do? We were trapped, with no prospect of rescue."

"You were stuck on the runway! For forty-five minutes!")

Kids in the Hall - Inexperienced Cannibal
posted by FatherDagon at 4:06 PM on June 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

My ex-mother in law was walking our dog when she had a heart attack and died. The dog sat next to her until a human came along and realized what had happened. This was not an especially well-trained dog and the woman was familiar to her but not someone she lived with. So I'm not buying that most dogs would eat their owner.
posted by billsaysthis at 4:14 PM on June 23, 2017

Well, this gets into somewhat tricky territory, but I think we have to accept as given that not all pet owners are equally delicious. I know, I know: No one wants to imagine that carnivores would turn their noses up at you, but it's just science. Some people are stringy or mangy and smell like petroleum-based products. Others are well-marbled and smell like whatever fabulous sandwich juices dribbled down our arms at lunch. I don't even own a dog thanks to raging allergies, but the neighbor's Scottish Terrier has been known to knock ever so politely on the front door from time to time to inquire after my health and as to whether I might happen to be available for eating.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:32 PM on June 23, 2017 [18 favorites]

agregoli: Everyone posting about how they hope their animal eats them rather than starves to death didn't read the article.

From the article:

"In some cases, it’s clear that the animals were scavenging to survive. In one 2007 report, a Chow and a Labrador mix survived for about a month after consuming their dead owner’s body, leaving only the top of the skull and an assortment of bone shards."

So yes, in some cases the eating appears to be some kind of panic-response to an owner that won't respond, but in others an animal is trying to survive, and people are merely agreeing that they'd rather be eaten than think of their pet starving to death in a locked residence.
posted by tavella at 4:49 PM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Why did the Labrador not eat the Chow? It's right there in the name!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:57 PM on June 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

My cat has taken to doing that kind of face-nuzzling thing that lionesses often do with each other, sort of mrowr purr gonna gnaw on your face affectionately. It wouldn't be a problem except that her eyeteeth are needle-sharp, and she actually slightly broke the skin on my nose the other morning. So now I'm keeping a hand at the scruff of her neck when she's nuzzling me, so I can give a gentle "don't do that" signal.

And yeah, if I'm dead I don't really care if the cat eats me, except to the extent that it might cause distress for the humans I leave behind.
posted by Lexica at 5:10 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Many years ago, I accidentally hit myself in the side of a knuckle with a really sharp chisel and went off to the hospital to get stitches. I left in a hurry and left behind a bunch of bloody tissues in the bathroom where I'd been rinsing the cut and figuring out if I could use bandages or needed stitches. I was *shocked* to discover on my return that the cats hadn't disturbed any of the tissues at all. I mocked them for a while for being bad predators, after that.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:15 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

So?

I'd want my cats to be well fed until somebody figured out I'd died.
posted by wotsac at 6:37 PM on June 23, 2017

Why did the Labrador not eat the Chow? It's right there in the name!

Because Chows are pure evil. And Labs are pure happiness.
posted by Splunge at 6:54 PM on June 23, 2017

Wolves eat at carcasses, and I think it's possible they could have some preprogrammed behavior that helps them out when presented with one by the pack as they're making the transition from having food given to them in some way by an adult.

But city raised dogs probably have never been in the presence of a real carcass, yet maybe an operational residue of such an instinct could still be found in some dogs -- and German Shepherds date only from 1899 and were crossed with wolves a number of times in the establishment of the breed.
posted by jamjam at 7:19 PM on June 23, 2017

I actually have a dead man's switch app specifically because of my cats. It's fine with me if they eat me but I worry that it might disturb their mental health plus I keep the toilet closed so they don't have regular access to amounts of water sufficient to wash me down their little kitty throats.
posted by janey47 at 7:24 PM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

I have waited bite chew bite so many years slash chew swallow for this day. So tear gnaw many times have I endured rip your rage for rend gulp no reason. “Yer a bad dog, Sparky!” you'd pierce lap yell, and if I was quick lap lap snuffle enough I could dodge the beer bottle snarf missile or broom handle flail. Too slow, grind snap and I'd have to wait gulp until you'd passed out rip snap to slink out and lick swab slice my wounds. “Yer a bad dog, Sparky!” lunge grab swallow but who drove mlem everyone else away? Your anger chew at the world's imaginary slights slurp shrunk you down to yip growl fit this decrepit den, a space shred snap bite only large enough to chew admit me as a stray pup. You smack snuffle chained me, you beat gnaw me, you starved me rend — yet I couldn't slash leave: you were all gnaw the world gnaw crack I knew. I woke in gouge my preemptive chew mlem cringe to you looming, reaching pull tear for any cudgel to beat shred your night's demons drool from me. “Yer a …” and mlem you dropped, all snuffle fire extinguished. I cowered bite bite until I sensed the stillness pull tug rip would never snap leave. What had been you slash was gone. All that tear shred was left, food. lunge snarf “… good dog, Sparky!” Yes, chew smack I'm Sparky. I'm mlem a very good wag wag dog.
posted by scruss at 8:23 PM on June 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

The kitten was fine.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:06 PM on June 23, 2017

Cats do wait until you're dead

please let's not ascribe the defects of some people's particular cats to the entire species. My cat starts eating me when she gets hungry in the morning and she don't stop until I fling her off me. I have tested this by pretending not to wake up when it happens and she does indeed bite down harder and harder and harder until I open my eyes and yell at her. it is not so much a test as a calculated provocation. but were I dead one morning, she would get her breakfast the easy way instead of the hard way, for once.

she is a sweet cat but she loves her belly best and me second best
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:10 PM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm not worried. See, I am at least partially made of bones, and Chelsea knows perfectly well that bones are only to be eaten outdoors. So she wouldn't eat me; she'd carry bits of me around the house, wandering from room to room and whimpering in confusion, until somebody let her out the back door.

She might even bury me in my own bed, which would be a bonus if I'd e.g. collapsed on the bathroom floor.
posted by flabdablet at 11:13 PM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Humans have never really hesitated to eat their faithful sled-dogs and the like, FWIW.
posted by Segundus at 1:40 AM on June 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

This is why you should never give your dogs a hankering for people food.
posted by drlith at 6:21 AM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't mind if my dogs ate me after I died.
First, I'd be dead so it's not me.
Second, I wouldn't want them to starve until someone found them.
Third, if there was an option to be turned into pet food after death I would consider it.
- Yes, I'm weird, why do you ask?
posted by Gadgetenvy at 8:10 AM on June 24, 2017

It's fine with me if they eat me but I worry that it might disturb their mental health

*adds janey47 to the Wallflower Wall of Righteous Humans*
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:25 AM on June 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Faithful sled dogs

Sled dogs were bred by arctic indigenous hunters to be able to eat human waste and maximize caloric efficiency on the hunt.
posted by spitbull at 9:51 AM on June 24, 2017

(This is my problem with vegans. Many critters would totally eat us--and each other. And they do! Factory farming is bad, I get that. But being an omnivore?) /derail
posted by Bella Donna at 12:09 PM on June 24, 2017

(Vegans recognize that humans are omnivores who can subsist on food that causes less suffering in the world. Doesn't seem like a big problem to me.) //derail
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:22 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

When my cat's bowl is empty he opens his mouth as wide as he possibly can and then bites me. The chin, the temple, the cheek, the elbow, the wrist, the hand, the foot... None of these are safe when bowl is empty. No matter that there is another bowl in another room with food in it. The bowl in this room is empty. You must fill.

I know he's going to eat me when I'm dead. I'm not worried about that. But I AM worried about sleeping a little too soundly...
posted by elsietheeel at 4:00 PM on June 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, and I forgot to mention...his name actually IS Hannibal.
posted by elsietheeel at 4:02 PM on June 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

I wonder if the eating (in the case of it happening soon after the human has died so the animal is not yet starving) has to do with some kind of kinship or respect in the animal's "mind"- who knows? (they do know for sure the body is dead I presume, just like we can tell when an animal is dead). I also thought it might be a response to anxiety and grief, which the article touches on.
posted by bearette at 8:29 PM on June 24, 2017

Acknowledging that in a pinch we see each other as a food source -- and that in a toss up I'll be dining last -- is the foundation to all my good dog relationships.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:03 PM on June 24, 2017

I'm envisioning a team of smart, scrappy goldfish carefully laying trip wires.

...with musical accompaniment.
posted by zarq at 7:37 AM on June 25, 2017

…all I'm saying is that we're almost out of kibble.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:20 PM on July 16, 2017 [1 favorite]