Are Dogs a Shark's Favorite Meal?

In 2005, The Sun reported that dogs were being used as live bait in the Indian Ocean. Is it possible that dogs are a delicacy to sharks? Take a look at our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about the diet of sharks.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by
consumer Guy at Automotive We make garbine easier. Hi, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, is staff writer
here at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me is

(00:20):
arguably at least my equal, if not better, fellow staff
writer Charles Bryant. How are you chucking? I'm good? You
got any dogs? I do? I have two very sweet
and bad dogs, Buckley. Yeah. I have three dogs, um, Abby,
Bow and Maybell, and they're all related in super cute.
And I love my dogs. Is I'm sure you love

(00:41):
your dogs sometimes? Well everyone, Every once in a while
I wake up from a deep sleep and I'm covered
in sweat and panicking just a little bit um at
the thought or dream of my dogs being eaten by sharks?
Has that ever happened to you? Know? That's really weird.
It is weird, but it's it's awful, a terrible way
to live. Well, you've told me there's a reason behind this. Yeah, actually, um,

(01:04):
And there was an article in two thousand five that
that came out in two thousand five in the British
tabloid The Sun. Um and uh. Basically it was a
photo of a dog with a huge fish hook through
its nose and apparently the dog had been used on
this small island in the Indian Ocean as shark bait.

(01:26):
So ever since I saw that, I'm thinking our dogs,
you know something that sharks like to eat? And true?
Is this? Is that? Like it bat boy or no?
It is true? I'm not sure if the photo is true.
Still a disturbing photo, but apparently it is true. Um
and frankly I went on Snops the double check and
stuff says it looks like it's true. That's horrific. But

(01:47):
ever since then I haven't been able to get that
image out of my head, or at least the image
of my dogs being eaten. Right, So, um, can you
help me put this to rest? Yeah, a little bit.
I think one of the reasons that you have this
fear is because is there's something called gaiya phobia, which
is irrational fear of being eaten by a shark yourself
and projecting or transferring onto my dogs. Probably so it
sounds like me, yeah, young might say that. But uh,

(02:10):
one of the reasons I think is because being attacked
by shark is probably one of the most terrifying things,
even though it doesn't happen often. You can't imagine, thanks
to Steven Spielberg, anything worse than being dragged under and
bitten by something, you know, three times you're side the
Jaws effect, the Jaws effect, which is very real. It
definitely is real. But like you said, I mean, there's
not a lot of shark attacks really. For as many

(02:31):
people are who are walking around, um, you know, very
concerned by being attacked by a shark, there's not that many.
There's like seventy one shark attacks across all species of
sharks in two thousand seven, and only one of those
related in in fatality. Right, right, And I've got a
couple of more stats for you, Josh, it might help
put this into perspective. Um, they're kind of silly, but

(02:52):
they're true. Between nine and two thousand and six, twelve
people in the United States were killed by sharks and
sixteen people guide from sand hole collapses. Wow, that's true. Boom, Yeah,
and uh, in seven, there were thirteen injuries all across
the country from shark attacks, and there were more than
fifteen hundred injuries from humans biting other humans in New

(03:14):
York City alone. I know that was a terrible year
for human bites. It was a lot of people who
were bitten by someone else. Right, But you don't walk
around the streets of New York afraid that someone's gonna
bite you. Yet every time you're in the ocean, you're
probably afraid that the shark's gonna bite you. Definitely, sure, sure,
but but I mean, let's put this to rest, right,
I'm I'm not so much worried about myself. My concern
is really over my dogs. Even though you live nowhere

(03:36):
near an ocean precisely, we're pretty much landlocked here. Um.
But although you know, there are some sharks that can
swim upstream, right, yeah, bull sharks, And how far has
one ever made it? They they swimming and rivers to
get to other bodies of water, and they can survive
in fresh water. They've been spotted as far north as
Illinois of the Mississippi River, which is yeah, that's crazy,

(03:58):
that's really crazy. And actually the chatter who which is
pretty filthy, But I don't know, maybe a bull shark
would try it who knows. Maybe so uh, I actually
have to confess, I do know whether or not dogs
are a shark's favorite meal, and the answer is no,
although that's not to say that a shark won't eat
a dog if the you know, moment's right, the heat
of the moment, it's most likely, Yeah, who are you,

(04:20):
and I'm going to eat you to find out. Um,
there's a I think is it the bull shark of
the tiger shark that does the bump and bite. The
bullshark mainly does the bumping bite, which is just kind
of investigate and see what if something is edible or
you know, has enough blubber, which is they're really their
favorite thing to eat. But a bull shark too will
also eat like license plates and shoes, so will a

(04:41):
tiger shark. I think bull sharks have been known to
eat hippopotami under the right conditions, right, And tiger sharks
are the vacuum cleaners of the sea that call them
so that they'll lead anything. Now, a great a great
white actually tests out whether or not it's it's prey,
something is its prey by kind of biting down gently.
Because all sharks prefer blubber. Whales have been found that
we're relatively intact but advistrated but missing all their blubber.

(05:03):
And sharks love seals, And if you're attacked by a
great white and it's chomping down on you, it's um
basically just testing to see how much blubber you have.
Dogs don't have much blubber. But like you said, mistaken
identity can lead you a bad day for a dog,
and you can could happen. There's plenty more information where
this came from our dogs is shark's favorite meal, and
you can read it on how stuff works dot com

(05:24):
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