One of the man-eating shelties.
From the National Post:
There’s a happy ending to the morbid story of seven cadaver-eating dogs rescued by the Saskatoon SPCA: all are now adopted, just four days after their story became public.
The dogs — five shelties and two mixed breeds — were given a clean bill of health after being checked out by shelter workers and put up for adoption.
They were rescued for a Yorkton, Sask. home last week after RCMP officers found the owners, a man, 67, and a woman, 57, dead. The seven dogs had survived for two to three weeks by eating the couple’s remains. The Saskatchewan SPCA was called in to take care of the dogs, who were transferred to the Saskatoon SPCA for treatment and adoption.
“We have a philosophy not to turn away any animal that needs our care, and each animal receives professional attention and an individual assessment,” Tiffiny Koback, the shelter’s director, said in a news release. “Once an animal has passed all of our tests and receive the endorsement of an animal care professional, we begin the process to find them a home.”
Despite calls from one neighbour to put the dogs down, saying they could no longer be trusted after tasting human flesh, Ms. Koback, with the support of dog behaviour specialist Brad Pattison, host of television show At the End of My Leash, said as long as the dogs were healthy and deemed fit to be around people, they would be put up for adoption and all potential adopters would be told about their history.
“At the end of the day it’s up to the individual if they’re comfortable adopting an animal with that kind of history,” she said.
Coroners are still investigating what happened to the couple, but police said they do not suspect foul play.
The shelter does not release the names of the people who have adopted animals.
Don’t hit me. I know that headline was not what you were expecting.
But you read it anyway.
When these dogs were taken in, though, there was a hysterical cry that these dogs were going to become man-eaters because “they now had a taste for human flesh.”
I don’t think anyone who knows much about dog behavior would ever make that claim. However, there is some suggestion that wolves living Europe during the bubonic plague years did develop a taste from human flesh from eating corpses that had not yet been buried or were buried in shallow graves.
I have seven dogs and if I died and none of my family or neighbors checked on me then I would not care if I was food for them rather then see them starve
WTF, Brad Pattison is some kind of ‘dog expert’ being consulted by these people? Disgusting.
He’s the Canuck version of Cesar Milan– only worse.
But even an idiot like me could tell you those dogs weren’t going to be hunting people.
My mom adores him, unfortunately.
The canadian media seems to be just as enamoured with Brad as the american media is with Ceaser.
http://www.asylum.com/2009/12/18/would-you-adopt-man-eating-pugs/
That’s it.
Wasn’t there a similar incident a couple of years ago with Pugs?
“Couldn’t be trusted after tasting human flesh” – really? How ignorant are people? They just did what any animal would do to survive, not a reason to off them, surely. I’m glad they found homes.
I have been lectured by checkers at Walmart about how my dogs will turn on me because I’ve fed them raw chicken quarters.
“How ignorant are people?” is one of those questions you don’t really want an answer to.
I had someone tell me raw-bones is a way you raise fighting dogs eight months ago.
This was from a guy who told me to get a dog three years ago.
@Jess, @Dave, I think you both just answered the question – “how ignorant are people”! Sad, isn’t it?
There was a Shiba in rescue not long ago who ate the toes off of his diabetic owner, which alerted the man to the fact that he actually had some severe diabetic foot ulcers, and sort of, roundaboutly, saved his life.
Poor dogs. The ignorant masses sure do come up with some crazy correlations.
“Dog Eats Diabetic Toes” seems to be not uncommon. I’ve read of at least three different cases in the last year or so.
I’ll have to warn my dad to have his dogs check out his toes periodically. He’s diabetic.
If you read the quote from the Post carefully, you should see that it was “a neighbor” who made the comment that the dogs “could no longer be trusted”. Pattison supported the shelter director, Ms Koback, about the possibility of the dogs being adopted. Is that the reason for criticizing Mr Pattison? (about whom I know nothing whatever).
There used to be more videos of his abuse, but now he doesn’t allow taping at his ‘lessons’ and gets YouTube to remove most of them die to ‘copyright’ B.S.
That one is hard for me to watch.