Hilarious. :rolleyes:
Snopes doesn’t say how this happened; I wonder if the dog was caught somehow in an enclosed space with the porcupine and couldn’t avoid being quilled. (Is that what it’s called?) It’s kind of funny (funny strange, not funny haha) that it doesn’t say how this happened. Did the dog just come home like that? Did the owner see the encounter?
Anyone think that the porcupine survived this one? Anyone care? If the wonderful good doggie with the strong prey drive had mauled a child or someone’s cat, would you folks still be full of compassion and understanding for it?
Not sure what you’re trying to say here. If the dog mauled a child and was beaten to death in order to get the dog off, the pictures of the bludgeoned dog would not be “funny.” The idea of the dog having to be hammered to a pulp in order to pull it off would not be “funny.” No matter if the dog “deserved” it or not. Of course the dog should be stopped from attacking a child, no matter what it took. I would just find it weird and creepy that someone could feel the whole thing was a laugh riot.
Something about selective compassion I should think.
This has been something that I have been trying to work out for a while, concerning people. It seems as if there are some folks that are simply determined that they will find something to feel compassionate about in situation X, and that they will, by god, be shocked and outraged at the lack of compassion of others. To the point of not being able to even conceive the darkness that must inhabit the soul of another that they should not share the same emotional response.
So, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem to me that my emotional makeup is that different than that of the other people that I encounter in life. I am not, that I am aware of, some form of a sociopath. I am sure that if I had a dog come home in that state that I would be appropriately concerned, but damn it a part of me would still find the situation amusing as hell.
I think its funny.
The story itself exemplifies the spirit of the dog.
The dog did what dogs do. Attack prey. This particular dog caught the pain of a barbed quill and remained determined to win the fight. It was an unfortunate ending for the porcupine but in the wild an occasional porcupine dies when attacked by a predator. This was an “in the wild” situation. Even though the dog was domesticated its instints were there and the porcupine’s defense system was there too.
This reminds me of the time my childhood friend got stung by a paper wasp when he leaned against a fence that had a wasp nest attached under the railing. Instead of being driven off by the first sting, my friend waded into the nest’s war zone, slapped the nest and most of the wasps to death all the while getting stung repeatedly. He took 11 stings doing it.
We laughed our asses off. Not because of his pain but in recognition of his stubborness to heed the warning.
What’s selective about it? I myself would feel bad for both the dog and the porcupine no matter who attacked whom. And I wouldn’t find any kind of pictures about any animal mauled by any other animal for any reason to be funny. I would bet most people in this thread who didn’t find the dog picture funny would agree. Where is the selective compassion, then?
It’s funny and it does look painful. Funny stuff happens in nature all the time.
missbunny, I am trying to decide if you are deliberately acting like you are misunderstanding me or if we are genuinely not communicating. Perhaps what I am getting at is a mirror image of the folks that are so filled with compassion that they just can’t emotionally grasp how this is funny. I emotionally cannot understand how this is, at least partially, not funny to some people. Further, it is my take that I am emotionally within the norm so I am beginning to think that there almost has to be an element of dishonesty in play here. So I don’t know, it just seems that getting all weepy about two animals just doing what animals do is odd to me. Reminds me of when I was 5 and watching wild kingdom and I would root for the gazelle.
It may be that selective compassion was not the best term to use. It just seems to me that some of the reactions here are very, very off and that was the closest that I could come to putting my finger on it.
It was that I am really not understanding you. It’s not an act. I don’t play that way.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I am not filled with compassion for the dog or for the porcupine, nor am I weepy over what happened to either one. I understand that it’s nature. I simply do not find pictures of injured animals funny - and especially when it’s in some fashion that must have caused horrendous pain - no matter how it happened. I think it’s odd and disturbing to find pictures like that funny because it is completely out of the scope of anything I could ever perceive as humorous. I’m sure there are few, if any, sociopaths here who plan to go out and murder some kittens but I still find it strange they would look at that dog and be amused. This is my opinion, and others, obviously, feel differently.
missbunny, so is it your take that this is the norm? Serioulsy, I don’t get it. Are you saying that this is not only not funny to you on any level but that you simply can’t understand how it could be to others?
Right. I don’t understand how people can find the picture or backstory funny. I realize that some people DO find it funny but I don’t see any humor in it and thinks it’s odd that someone else might. We all have particular issues about which we feel strongly and this is one of mine.
If other people on the board find such things funny, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I live and practice along the edge of the porcupine’s range. That range has shifted southward year after year due, I guess, to man’s intrussions. No lesson is learned IME. I have seen dogs with second and third porcupine interactions.
I see two to four cases a year where a dog interacts with a porcupine. The dog usually gets a nose full of quills, then jumps back. But then the dog is pissed and tries to strike back, often repeatedly. I have seen a few almost as bad as the pic. The picture is not really that big a deal as far as porcupine/dog interactions go.
Usually the inside of the mouth is a real mess. Dozens of quills through the tongue and palate.
The sad ones are the dogs owned by owners who, after getting the estimate for anesthesia and removal of quills, decide to save money and take the dog home. They try using pliers, which the dog probably tolerates for a short time. Once the dog starts fighting the owner, the owner shoots the dog.
My sister also has to de-quill the random dog… Her experience on it is that most dogs that get that badly quilled will likely do it again, if given a chance. Either the dog was having too much fun to mind the pain, or was in full fury and couldn’t be bothered by hurt at that time; it was too busy attacking. Some dogs, she reports, seem to have developed a real grudge against the porcupines, and come back for de-quilling again and again. The dogs that get just a few quills have usually only been slapped one or twice, and generally are not of the mindset or instinct to go back for more.
JFTR, if you follow the link in Snopes, it takes you to the MB where the owner discusses what happened - She has multiple dogs, and apparantly only one got quilled, by a porcupine that came very close to the house. The porcupine did not survive the encounter, and its carcass was sent off for testing to determine if illness was the reason for it coming so far out of the woods. There was some concern about rabies… Clean bill, however. Aside from the maulling, of course.
Dog 1, Porcupine 1/2
Oh, and the vet bill was huge.
Yep, porcupined dogs take lots of time. Each quill is an individual foreign body that needs to be removed. As in most endevours, time is money.
Hey, thanks for that Captain Bringdown. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a darkened corner to curl into the fetal postion and sob in.
Sorry Harborwolf. Real world and all. I probably see a few cases every day that would be equal or worse than that. 
I think this is a big ol’ stumbling block of anthropomorphism. This particular breed of dog is known for having (and was bred to have) an incredibly high pain tolerance. This means they literally feel pain differently to you or me. Whatever pain the dog was feeling it obviously didn’t stop it from going in for seconds (or thirds, it looks like) and it’s standing there calmly despite the pincushion imitation.
I think you are attributing way much to the breed of dog. The average run of the mill dog that I see with quills has maybe half or a third as many as this dog. Dogs almost always go back a second and possibly third time. And they all stand in the waiting room just like the dog in the picture.