Redsonic

This is so untrue! The most productive animals are often the ones which are most stressed and have the poorest environment. Just consider: Caged hens - often "pushed" through the off lay period with artificial lighting and severe cuts to food intake then killed at 18months when their metabolism can't take it any more Feedlot Dairy cows - Produce so much milk that they live on the point of metabolic collapse such that they are prone to every infection that comes their way and show constantly elevated stress hormones Sows in sow stalls - raise more piglets because there is little risk of crushing them when you are unable to turn around. The old "productivity can't be good when welfare is poor" is an argument factory farmers have been using for decades and is patently untrue. Back on topic, I agree with what people have said about more selective breeding and modern training methods reducing waste of working dogs. The main exception to this would be greyhound racing because by definition it is competitive and there will always be winners and losers. No matter how well greyhounds are bred and trained, there will always be a large percentage of dogs which can't earn their keep.

This. A lot of people can't imagine themselves in this guy's position but Sandgrubber has given a good example with a few bad driving decisions which are a little closer to home for some.

Where did the "three days" bit come from? I can only find reference to him eating the dog "a few days" after losing his stuff to the bear.

There have been quite a lot of very critical (harsh?) replies on this thread; many comments on how stupid this guy was to take such a risk and be so unprepared. I think people's attitudes to risk vary widely and, like it or not, our dogs are along for the ride. Some dogs have owners who would never dream of driving them around without a seatbelt (me!) or letting them off leash. Other dogs have humans who take them canyoning or riding on the tank of their motorbike. Perhaps this dog was unlucky to have such a risk taker as an owner but I bet he had huge fun doing wilderness treks with his human. Yes, the guy was really unprepared and made some really bad decisions to get himself and his dog into this situation, but would you be so upset and angry about it if it happened to your loved one, or would you forgive him? What if it was your husband/son/brother/father who got in this situation and ate the dog? Would you rather have your loved one back, knowing he had been stupid and the dog had paid the price, or lose them both, never knowing what had happened to them? I can't say whether I would kill my own dog in this situation (I really doubt I could) but I would certainly consider eating him once dead, and I hope that my loved ones (and the DOL community!) would forgive the desperate act. This guy has to live with his harmful actions/decisions for the rest of his life and probably doesn't need strangers online to make him feel hugely guilty.

How Sad Article Here Trekker Marco Lavoie eats his beloved pet dog to survive days after it saved him from bear attack NOVEMBER 03, 2013 A man was forced to eat his beloved german shepherd after being trapped in the Canadian wilderness. Source: AFP A TREKKER who was stranded in a remote region of Canada killed and ate his beloved German Shepherd just days after the dog had saved him from a bear. Marc Lavoie’s three-month climbing trip in the Canadian outback turned to disaster when a bear attacked his camp on the banks of the Nottaway River, around 800km northwest of Montreal. Mr Lavoie escaped with his life when his German shepherd chased it away - but not before the bear had destroyed his canoe and food supply. Risking starvation Mr Lavoie made the heart-breaking decision to kill the dog just a few days later. He hit the animal with a rock and ate its meat. Mr Lavoie was rescued this week after three months in the deep wilderness. By the time he was airlifted out the outdoorsman was suffering from hypothermia and dehydration and had lost about 40 kilograms, the Toronto Sun reported. Survival experts said the decision to kill the dog may have saved his life. "He survived because he made good decisions. Eating his dog was one of them," Andre Francois Bourbeau, a survival expert, told the paper. Even so, locals said they had warned the outdoorsman against trekking the river alone. Andre Diamond, a Waswanipi Cree who lives on an island at the mouth of the river, said: “He said it didn't scare him, but it's not a river to travel alone. Other adventurers have gone there over 20, 30 years and never came back.” The Nottaway River is a notoriously dangerous place to travel with temperatures dropping below freezing, and potentially deadly currents. Mr Lavoie is in hospital in a serious condition.