Hiker eats dog to stay "alive"

Assamiea

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#3
He ate his dog after 3 days, but then survived for 3 months? Personally I think he jumped the gun way too soon. If he survived for 3 months he obviously found a food source somewhere. For me, eating my dog would be a very last resort, especially if my dog had saved me from a bear.
 

krissy

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#4
I would have to be incredibly desperate to kill and eat any dog, let alone my own. I doubt I could do it. I know they say you'll do anything at that point but... seriously, I would probably be physically incapable of killing my dog by the point I got desperate enough to do it. Definitely not after 3 days. You've got to be kidding me.
 

HayleyMarie

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#5
Just pretty sure he jumped the gun on that one. And IMO he probably should have had at least a shot gun especially when you are in bear country. I wonder how the bear got into his food. Was it at night? If he was leaving his food unattended for any length of time he should of made a bear hang.
 

MericoX

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#6
Three days you're not going to be that far from civilization. Why the hell not just turn around and go back?
 

Beanie

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#7
Three days you're not going to be that far from civilization. Why the hell not just turn around and go back?
It doesn't say he was gone for three days, just that he was without food for three days (before killing the dog.) A bear destroyed his food and his canoe and he was stranded 500 miles outside of Montreal. So 500 miles away and presumably the canoe is how he got there and how he would get out, save walking.

The article makes it sound like the dog would have turned on him and eaten him so he had to kill the dog while he was still strong enough to overpower it... I guess..?

It's strange, they said he's an experienced outdoorsman but he sure got himself in a really rotten spot with no way out. The article says the place he was at is deemed too dangerous even for experienced outdoorsman...
 

crazedACD

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#8
I have a hard time with three days, after losing his initial food and supplies. I guess after several weeks, if the dog has not proven useful for hunting, and you are not consistently having luck hunting, you know you are starting to starve..I guess I could see that as acceptable. Even if we were talking about something other than a 'dog', like a big stash of food, I would want to wait as long as possible to consume it, to give me the best chance of being found? Such a strange story.
 

Fran101

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#9
I wasn't there, I don't know this man or his mental state and I have no experience with being stuck in some god forsaken wilderness for any length of time..
so.. I withhold judgement on the matter.
 
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#10
Three days? Yea I'll judge the hell out of him if he killed his dog to eat it after three days.

Having said that, I'm wondering if something got lost in translation here. Given the condition he's reportedly in, I'm not completely sure the guy was lucid enough right after being rescued to really give an accurate account of the nitty gritty details of what happened.
 

Fran101

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#11
Three days? Yea I'll judge the hell out of him if he killed his dog to eat it after three days.

Having said that, I'm wondering if something got lost in translation here. Given the condition he's reportedly in, I'm not completely sure the guy was lucid enough right after being rescued to really give an accurate account of the nitty gritty details of what happened.
He was out there A LOT longer than 3 days (I believe months..) and I doubt he was totally fine before and then all of sudden just ate his dog.

It seems he wasn't even lucid enough (and physically sound) to give any answers and the whole story is just hazy.. I think there just isn't enough to say "Oh he ate his dog because he was hungry and crazy after just 3 days"

I just don't think there is enough information
 
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#12
He was out there A LOT longer than 3 days (I believe months..) and I doubt he was totally fine before and then all of sudden just ate his dog.
He was out there for 3 months but according to the story he allegedly killed and ate the dog after just three days. And if that's true, then yes... I am judging him and finding him wanting. Because three days.

It seems he wasn't even lucid enough (and physically sound) to give any answers and the whole story is just hazy.. I think there just isn't enough to say "Oh he ate his dog because he was hungry and crazy after just 3 days"

I just don't think there is enough information
Yes, that's what I mean, that I don't completely trust the level of detail in "he killed and ate the dog after three days" reports at this point given the state he must have been in when he was rescued.
 

Xandra

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#13
Three days? Yea I'll judge the hell out of him if he killed his dog to eat it after three days.

Having said that, I'm wondering if something got lost in translation here. Given the condition he's reportedly in, I'm not completely sure the guy was lucid enough right after being rescued to really give an accurate account of the nitty gritty details of what happened.
Agreed.

The guy apparently said he ate the dog three days after his food supply was destroyed, but between being 95% dead AND I'm assuming a French-English translation, I'm also guessing we're not getting the real story. It would make more sense that he'd been without food for a while before killed it.


It's like...why would you even have a pet dog and bring it along if you cared about it so little that after 3 days of hunger it became a food source? It's just weird.


And when they talk about overpowering the dog, I think they're referring to him being too weak to kill it vs the dog attacking him.

But yeah, if he really did wait just three days before bashing in his dogs skull with a rock? I will judge to my heart's content. I'm not sure how hungry and desperate I'd have to be before I killed my dog in such a brutal way, but I don't need to be in the situation to know I would never kill him after only three days. I wouldn't even kill my female llama after three days without food, and my feelings toward her are only just on the warm side of lukewarm.
 
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Fran101

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#14
Of course none of us, in our right state of mind (or just because of hunger) would ever hurt or kill our own dogs (obvi.)
but what I'm saying is.. this story is vague, translation is rough, and IT'S ENTIRELY possible (pretty likely IMO) that there is a greater mental health issue going on here.

I just have my doubts about this being a black/white cruelty case or a story about a guy being hungry after 3 days and deciding to eat his dog.

IMO it's more likely that this is an issue of a mental break of some sort. In which case, it's NOT an issue of "I would never do that" because of COURSE we wouldn't
I'm not withholding judgement because "hey who knows if I got hungry enough.."

I'm with-holding judgement because of his state upon retrieval and what his mental health was/the whole situation. There are just A LOT of factors that don't make sense.
He could be mentally ill, could've been traumatized, could've eaten some mushrooms.. point is, he wasn't exactly hunky dory when rescued (more-so than just not having been fed for a few days)

I just don't think there is enough to go on.

It's really easy for me to sit in bed and think "OH I WOULD NEVER" but hey, I've never been starving and alone and eaten crazy shrooms or had a mental breakdown.. and the brain is a brilliant scary thing so...

I'm just saying it's entirely possible this case is more grey than just black/white
It may not be, who knows.
But still, I'm not going to decide this guy is a crazy animal abuser, he kept the dog with him for months.. something is off about this story.

and his condition on retrieval is vague at best and certainly didn't indicate that he was hunky dory other than being kind of hungry.
(and WHO would leave for months and not tell anyone?)
I suspect there is much more to this when it comes to that mans mental health and the true reasons for his actions
 

Xandra

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#15
Of course none of us, in our right state of mind (or just because of hunger) would ever hurt or kill our own dogs (obvi.)
but what I'm saying is.. this story is vague, translation is rough, and IT'S ENTIRELY possible (pretty likely IMO) that there is a greater mental health issue going on here.

I just have my doubts about this being a black/white cruelty case or a story about a guy being hungry after 3 days and deciding to eat his dog.

IMO it's more likely that this is an issue of a mental break of some sort. In which case, it's NOT an issue of "I would never do that" because of COURSE we wouldn't
I'm not withholding judgement because "hey who knows if I got hungry enough.."

I'm with-holding judgement because I have no idea what I would do if I had a mental break or ate some mushrooms and went crazy or had a disorder or lost control of my proper thought process or who knows what else..

I just don't think there is enough to go on.

It's really easy for me to sit in bed and think "OH I WOULD NEVER" but hey, I've never been starving and alone and eaten crazy shrooms or had a mental breakdown.. and the brain is a brilliant scary thing so...

I'm just saying it's entirely possible this case is more grey than just black/white
It may not be, who knows.
But still, I'm not going to decide this guy is a crazy animal abuser, he kept the dog with him for months.. something is off about this story.

and his condition on retrieval is vague at best and certainly didn't indicate that he was hunky dory other than being kind of hungry.
(and WHO would leave for months and not tell anyone?)
I suspect there is much more to this when it comes to that mans mental health and the true reasons for his actions
I think lots of people would eat their dogs out of hunger and it's a totally reasonable thing to do, just under more extreme conditions than 3 days of not eating. This being a cruelty or animal abuse case never even entered my mind. I thought it was a case of either extremely bad judgement or poor judgement and miscommunication.

Yeah if he was mentally ill or on some sort of hallucinogenic mushroom trip, his actions were out of his control and we can't judge that. I just don't see much to indicate that he is/was other then the 3 day thing. I mean, there isn't anything THAT bizarre about the story other than that.

Eccentric and even somewhat normal people go off into the wilderness all the time and apparently he was a wilderness enthusiast.

He did tell his friends and family what he was doing and apparently they were OK with it until he didn't come home on time, then they reported him missing. He was practically in the arctic for months without proper food or equipment and I think it would have been hard to survive unless he was pretty sane (but I recognize crazy works in different ways). I guess for those reasons, and because we do have some details (the dog running off the bear, method of killing the dog etc) without any sort of mental problem coming up, I assumed he was it was a case of someone biting off more than they can chew vs someone going crazy. I suppose time will tell.
 

Romy

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#16
and his condition on retrieval is vague at best and certainly didn't indicate that he was hunky dory other than being kind of hungry.
(and WHO would leave for months and not tell anyone?)
I suspect there is much more to this when it comes to that mans mental health and the true reasons for his actions
Agreed. Also, I read in another report that he had lost 80-ish pounds by the time he was found, which ended up being about half his body weight. :eek:
 

xpaeanx

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#17
26

First of all... I am not a huge fan of the post. I feel they go the extra mile to excite their reader.

Anyway, this article goes over his condition a little more. It also states the cops aren't even sure what really happened because he's not quite able to really give full details yet. He also had a sprained ankle(which depending on the severity could cripple him. Not that I can claim reliability for this article either.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486631/Marco-Lavoie-stranded-hiker-ate-dog-wants-pet.html

I wouldn't have been able to kill my dog, especially after 3 days.... But I also haven't been in anything thing close to this guys situation. I'm not going to throw any judgements out on him.
 

RD

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#18
Dogs are meat like any other animal. Yeah. If I was starving to death or facing the potential for starving to death, I'm pretty sure I'd eat my beloved dog.
 

sillysally

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#19
This story reminds me of the short story "To Build a Fire." I will reserve judgement on the dog thing because the details seem sketchy. I wonder what he was eating the rest of the time though-I think the rule of thumb is 3 weeks without food will usually kill you, so what else did he eat?

It sounds like an awful situation but I have a hard time feeling sorry for the guy. If he was that experienced then he knew what he was getting himself into-he went out into the wilderness alone hundreds of miles away from civilization and apparently with no Plan B. Not much margin for error there. He's incredibly lucky he was found at all. He's also incredibly lucky the bear didn't come back for more.
 
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