An Oregon couple and their 25-year-old son were picking mushrooms in the densely wooded Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest when they became lost. Badly lost. They spent six nights in the chilly woods with their pit bull, Jesse, at their side.
They had no food, and slept in a hollowed out log. After a few nights, they thought they were going to die.
At one point during the long ordeal, Dan Conne began to look at his dog as not just a source of companionship, but a potential source of protein — food that could help the three survive.
“She’s that good a dog, she’d have done it, too,” said Conne, 47.
Fortunately it didn’t come to that. A volunteer helicopter pilot was searching for the family outside the search area when Conne and his wife, Belinda, caught his attention by flashinga knife blade and dead cellphone against the sun. The three people were airlifted to a hospital, and the dog left on paw with a ground rescue team.
After being released from the hospital the following day, Dan Conne picked up Jesse, who had been taken to an animal shelter after the rescue. When she saw him she was overjoyed, jumping and wiggling and dancing around, with apparently no idea that he’d been considering eating her in his darkest hour. (The family could not start a fire, so it would have been particularly disturbing …)
“I don’t think we could have done it,” Belinda Conne said of making a meal out of Jesse. “I probably would have starved to deathfirst.”
Dogsters, at first I wasn’t even going to ask you what you would do in this situation because I figured the majority of readers would be casting stones at this guy. But he really seems to love his dog. I am in the “no way on Earth would I kill my dog and eat him to save my life” camp, but I’ve never been in that situation so I guess I really can’t say for sure. Maybe if he succumbed first. But I don’t want to go there. Well, how about you?
Source: Associated Press, via the Times Union (The article provides some really interesting details of the rescue, and info about the family’s Chihuahuas who were left behind in their trailer during their absence, but survived as well.)
