After Bear Encounter, Starving Man Forced to Eat His Pet to Survive
OutdoorHub Reporters 11.28.16
A 44-year-old man from Quebec was out on a planned 2-month canoe trip with his pet German shepherd when his whole world got turned upside down.
According to local media, a bear surprised Lavoie and his dog at their campsite and then tore everything to shreds. An angry bear looking for food could have easily killed Lavoie, but like any good dog, Lavoie’s German shepherd was able to bark loud enough to scare away the bear.
Even though Lavoie was able to survive the bear encounter, the worst was yet to come. You see, the bear left Lavoie alive, but it did far more damage to his equipment. He was left stranded, now hundreds of miles away from civilization, with no food, and no chance of calling for help. Facing freezing conditions with no food, Lavoie had to make a devastating decision.
Lavoie had depended on his German shepherd to save his life once, but the dog had to do so a second time when the master was forced to eat his pet. It was an extremely controversial decision, but Lavoie was likely delusional from hunger.
“In that part of the country there’s little plant life to live off, so he would have been slowly, painfully dying when they found him. It’s an amazing feat that he was able to keep himself alive this long with almost no equipment,” said one survival expert. “When you start to go hungry, you get mood swings, your mind breaks, and you cramp up all over your body. Eventually, your body will start cannibalizing itself, eating away at the fat in your organs and then in your muscles.”
I’ve never been in a situation as dramatic as Lavoie’s, so I won’t pretend I know what it’s like, but that last part of this story is hard for me to accept. I can’t even begin to think of a scenario where I would resort to killing my pet to survive. Again, I can’t say I know how I would react, but consciously I would much rather just let my dog live than kill it and eat it, even if that means I have to suffer.
