Come gather ’round the Internet, children, to hear the most depressing tale that’s ever been told. On Sunday, a YouTube video of a dog burying another dog somewhere in the Middle East went viral. Not because it was sad, mind you, but because it was “heartwarming,” a canine caring for a fellow pup after he went to the Great Doghouse in the Sky. The Huffington Post wrote, “If you didn’t believe animals have the capability to grieve like people do, you might now change your mind.” Well, the thing is, kids, the dead dog might be in the alive dog’s stomach now.
“I think that this is a classic case of really interesting behavior — sort of unusual that somebody actually caught it on video — and we make a big deal out of it, and it’s really cute and it sort of reminds us of some of the things we do,” Peter Borchelt, a New York animal-behavior consultant who has worked with the Museum of Natural History and was formerly the director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at the Animal Medical Center, tells Daily Intelligencer. “I suspect it was more likely just caching dead meat, rather than a soulful response to the demise of a puppy that it wanted to bury.”
By way of example, Borchelt says that if the dog had sat there for a long time with his paws folded, as if he was praying, it would be “ridiculous” to assume the dog was actually praying.
“We as humans look at that and say, ‘Oh my God, this dog is burying this animal like we bury people.’ Except they’re two entirely different behavior systems.”
This does not mean the the dog necessarily plans on coming back to eat the dead puppy. “I wouldn’t want to go so far as to say that the dog is saving the puppy to eat for later, because that might not be the issue. But it’s still a piece of this instinctive thing,” Borchelt says. “Here’s meat, here’s a bone — I’ll bury it.” (Via)
…And that’s why, youngsters, the Easter Bunny isn’t real and Air Bud is dead. Good night.