Would my Cat or Dog really eat me if I died alone? Science explains

314 points by Glittering-Cause9983 10 hours ago on reddit | 81 comments

spiritplumber | 8 hours ago

If I am dead anyway and it keeps my pet alive until someone lets it out, I'm in favor of it. I'm dead. I'm not using the meat anymore.

ForagedFoodie | 8 hours ago

Right?!? What is the issue. Anyone who needs to eat my body after im dead has my blanket permission provided the following:

  • they werent one of the ones to intentionally kill me
  • consume only please, no weird stuff
  • if I was murdered, please try and take photos before you chow down, and try to leave the areas that might lead to the arrest of my killer(s) - such as the fatal wound - as untouched as you can

Peripatetictyl | 7 hours ago

Yea, take what you want from me once I’m gone, then throw the rest in the trash.

mlokc | 6 hours ago

I’d also like to ask that they respect my wishes. I would like to be braised with a savory garlic-herb butter.

waitwuh | 4 hours ago

Huh, sorta like Jesus.

(Jesus’s body is described as being oiled and wrapped with aromatic spices and linen before being placed in the tomb. Also, he did have that whole thing telling his followers to eat of his body…)

Emotionally_art1stic | 5 hours ago

Your username makes this comment a million times better.

iritchie001 | an hour ago

How dare you be rational.! I'm a direct descendant of the Donner Party. I tell people to please eat me and yes lie to the kids. I would never want anyone to die of starvation if i was already dead.

TheHandsomeFart | 6 hours ago

People are really weird about death

News_Bot | 6 hours ago

Pretty weird about life too.

TheHandsomeFart | 5 hours ago

Absolutely. We got some weird notions about everything

Crabcomfort | an hour ago

Reality is pretty weird imo haha

jdbrizzi | 6 hours ago

Agreed. I figured, make use of whatever organs they can salvage, then throw me in the ocean.

the_town_bike | 6 hours ago

Work in healthcare and yep a deceased patient found 7 days after her passing, her dog had a good munch on her face, no other body parts.. I appreciate the dog's will to survive.

enolaholmes23 | 3 hours ago

Also less cleanup for whoever finds ypur body

Brdbrnz | 2 hours ago

I agree but sadly I think they have to euthanize animals that do this due to the possibility of prion disease occurring.

xboxhaxorz | an hour ago

We should stop burying people, thats a heck ton of wasted protein, we are going against the circle of life with our fancy coffins and burial grounds, we are so selfish we dont contribute to the planet, we just take

CanIHazSumCheeseCake | 9 hours ago

"According to veterinary medicine experts, notably at Cornell University, this action is a direct response to an extreme biological stimulus.

When an owner passes away and the animal is trapped without access to an external food source, a shift occurs. The lack of movement and response from the human sends a clear signal to the animal’s brain: the social partner has become a survival resource. It is no longer the memories of cuddles that guide the animal, but ancestral scavenger reflexes inherited from their wild ancestors."

w3bar3b3ars | 7 hours ago

In other words, I'm fucking hungry.

R-sqrd | 5 hours ago

People will eat their relatives too. Has been documented in extreme scenarios (Leningrad siege in WW2)

Replikant83 | 3 hours ago

One of the most disturbing photos I've seen is of a Russian family running a food stall during famine. The food was their butchered child/children

throwheraway420666 | 3 hours ago

Are you sure that picture wasn’t AI? Asking genuinely.

Replikant83 | 3 hours ago

Pretty old picture. Though, it could be mislabeled and be a pig or some other animal.

LucyRiversinker | 2 hours ago

Also during the Stalin-created famine in Ukraine, Holodomor. The movie Mr. Jones shows it and it’s harrowing.

Sailor_Propane | 38 minutes ago

Heck, I saw in the newspaper a guy who was lost in the woods and ended up eating his dog to survive. He was distraught he had to do this. He was villainized by the comment section it was awful.

rlaw1234qq | 6 hours ago

My dog says “Why wait?”

jayclaw97 | 3 hours ago

I can imagine it’s very traumatic for them, like it would be for us.

bstabens | 6 hours ago

What a ton of words to explain that we are always prey, especially when not dangerous anymore.

DogPoetry | an hour ago

except it's not saying that at all. it's saying "we are no longer companions" after a certain point of hunger + clearly not moving body.

taisuzu | 2 hours ago

howcoolisthisname | 8 hours ago

I once read a post asking folk to bring dogs to the corpses of loved ones. Said dogs understand death, and will mourn, but - if the dog isn't shown the body, they will believe they were abandoned.

ZackTheZesty | 5 hours ago

My gf wants me to show her corpse to our cats, not sure if the same applies but she’s adamant about it

D3rpyDucky24 | 4 hours ago

I feel the same way about my cats. The thought of my babies thinking that I abandoned them torments me more than actually dying. I dont care what condition my body is in, they NEED to know that I didnt stop loving them.

ZackTheZesty | 3 hours ago

Jesus you sound just like her lol

enolaholmes23 | 3 hours ago

I thought that when my bunny died. That the other 2 bunnies wouldn't know where he went. So I brought them over to the body to say goodbye. But instead of mourning, one of them went to town humping the body. I guess we all have our own way of processing death.

aburke626 | 2 hours ago

I wish my mom hadn’t passed in the hospital because I was never able to explain to her cat what happened to her human. She was very upset and confused for a long time (we both were).

erisian2342 | 7 hours ago

Once the atoms I’m borrowing are done being me, I really hope they wander off to do other things that are at least as cool as being me was. Keeping my pet alive when she would otherwise have died most certainly counts as that.

Velbalenos | 7 hours ago

I like the atoms being ‘borrowed’. They’ve been around a long time since we existed, and will be around a long, long time after we’re gone. And yes if it keeps my animal pal alive for longer, I say munch on…

Dukoth | 7 hours ago

its not like the pet is on your carcass the moment you die, how many days go by? how hungry and desperate is it when it resorts to the only available food source?

taisuzu | 2 hours ago

It's not always like that. In many cases they aren't even hungry as scavenging occurs not that long after death even when there is readily availabe food for them. In one case it took less than 45 minutes after the owner's death for scavenging to begin.

'On the temporal onset of postmortem animal scavenging. "Motivation" of the animal'

'Post-mortem decapitation by domestic dogs: three case reports and review of the literature'

This article includes an interview with one of the authors of the second paper

chriswalkerb | 6 hours ago

I feel like people who get upset that their pets would eat them do not care enough about their pets in the first place.

You’d prefer they die and you keep your dead meat intact.

Idk it’s weird

EmperorMeow-Meow | 8 hours ago

I don't know why anyone would freak out. People would resort to this as well.

United-Coach-6591 | 7 hours ago

Right. I'm just glad my cats or dog wouldn't have the same moral/shame/guilt issues with it.

horseradishstalker | 6 hours ago

It’s the same mentality as killing zoo animals after people unofficially enter their cage. Most people think animals are an extension of themselves.

Puzzled-Barnacle-200 | 6 hours ago

When a group of people are trapped in a place without food, its very normal for people to eat other people who have passed away in order to avoid dying. Heck, people kill their pets to eat when they're desperate.

Why on earth would we hold vats and dogs to higher standards than people.

enolaholmes23 | 3 hours ago

I honestly think humans are the worse ones on this front. We are much more likely to kill and eat the dog before we have to because we panic. The dog would at least wait until after we were dead to eat us.

choosingishard2 | 6 hours ago

They get hungry and were made of meat. I’m not sure we really needed science to explain

QuirkyTarantula | 5 hours ago

Yeah.. I am a crematory operator. We had a decedent come in last year who died at home and wasn’t found for 9 days. No hands, only the skull left from neck up. Pretty much any exposed skin was eaten away. Like pristine white bone sort of picked clean. Our man only had two cats.

mrszubris | 7 hours ago

As a person who worked animal control?? Yes. And faster than you'd think

Alarming-Art-3577 | 7 hours ago

I worked with a former 911 operator. He said dogs and cats will eat the dead. Dogs will wait until you're cold. Cats not so much.

BigMar17 | 5 hours ago

Good 💁‍♀️ I ain’t using it anymore, feast up pookies, one more warm meal on me

Crabcomfort | an hour ago

Sounds like cats understand faster lol

enolaholmes23 | 3 hours ago

To be fair, you don't want the meat to spoil.

microwaved-tatertots | 2 hours ago

And ants

_6siXty6_ | 5 hours ago

Meh, if fido and Sylvester can live another day, let them eat me.

motorhead84 | 4 hours ago

Your dog is like "wow, this is way better than that canned crap they've been feeding me!"

TheFlyingBoxcar | 6 hours ago

Retired firefighter/medic here.

They will 100% eat you I guarenfuckintee it.

Source; shit Ive seen that I wouldnt mind unseeing...

KauaiCat | 5 hours ago

Who is surprised by this?

There are many examples of people eating the dead bodies of other people in order to survive and we're surprised a dog or cat would do the same?

BadbadwickedZoot | 4 hours ago

My dog has my full permission to eat my face. I will not have my girl go hungry.

Replikant83 | 3 hours ago

I hope my cat would eat me. Assuming they weren't getting fed, wtf are they supposed to eat!?

purplebird76 | 2 hours ago

I don’t get why folks are so worried about this. Like if I die, my cats can’t open their canned food or get into the air-tight kibble containers, and they can’t open doors. I would rather they eat my leg or something and survive until help comes rather than having them starve to death.

microwaved-tatertots | 2 hours ago

My dads job was to transport people to funeral homes.. ants and cats yes, dogs hold off as long as they can

GoodiesHQ | 5 hours ago

Not if I eat him first

Cephell | 2 hours ago

I HOPE my cat would eat on my body before she is found by someone else, in case something happened to me.

coosacat | an hour ago

My only fear is that I will have a stroke or something & be paralyzed, and they start eating me while I'm still alive. That doesn't sound like something I'd want to experience.

Once I'm dead, they're welcome to chow down. Don't waste the food.

Glittering-Age-9549 | 13 minutes ago

They would know you are alive.

neo101b | 8 hours ago

I can just image the looks on the paramedics faces when they break into your house find your body, and a cat crawls out of your mouth.

Revolutionary_Tap954 | 4 hours ago

Only one way to find out

majorfiasco | 3 hours ago

Wait, that's not the plan?

ants_taste_great | 2 hours ago

My dogs would figure out how to open the pantry and get to their kibble, then snacks.

Valuable_Example1689 | an hour ago

Man's gotta eat

BuzzAllWin | an hour ago

My Labrador was the friendliest creature of all tome but would have eaten me if i didnt wash bbq sauce off my fingers fast enough

Prionnebulae | 6 hours ago

My hoarder aunt slipped on a pile of junk mail and brained herself on a granite countertop edge. The body wasn't found for some time. I had to clean up after her nine kitties had been eating the body. The junk mail did a good job soaking up the guts and ooze, so I used a snow shovel. Very sad.

D3rpyDucky24 | 4 hours ago

A snow shovel? Damn thats a mess. I hope you got some kind of therapy/help after that.

Willthethrill605 | 6 hours ago

Yes. Cats hang around just waiting for you to die so they can eat your face off. Dogs have a little more loyalty.

NOTACOSTACOSTACOS | 5 hours ago

Guy from work who had been let go, died alone and his cats ate at least some of him. Wasn’t discovered for 4-5 weeks 🤮

switch182 | 9 hours ago

Dog no, Although your cat will eat your face.

Mazzywazz | 9 hours ago

No they absolutely will once they get hungry enough

Fae_for_a_Day | 4 hours ago

Dog will wait longer. Yes. But he will eat you.

AcanthisittaNo6653 | 8 hours ago

Anyone want a cat?