'Dog Attacking Shark' Videos Explained

In a new YouTube video that has gone viral, a dog is seen diving into water off the coast of Australia in pursuit of (and possibly biting) a lurking shark. In a second video uploaded in 2006 that has since racked up over 27 million views, a dog jumps off a boat, bites into a shark and drags it to shore, possibly killing it.

What is going through these dogs’ heads? Why would man’s best friend go after the ocean’s most feared predator?

Niwako Ogata, a dog behavior researcher at Massachusetts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University studied both videos and offers some interesting theories.

“It is difficult to say from the second video if the dog had a particular interest in attacking sharks,” Ogata said. “The dog might have been equally likely to go after any big fish or other object floating in the ocean.”

“Some dogs would react to any moving objects around them. We see similar behavior from a dog on a car ride,” she said.

“A dog might try to jump out of a car to pursue a land creature, just as the dog in the second video jumps off the boat to pursue a shark. If the dog in the first video did indeed chase and bite the shark, it was probably driven by the same instincts.”

“It could be that the dogs in these videos particularly enjoy swimming, or that they have high prey drives — strong instincts to pursue potential prey. For dogs with high prey drives, the thrill of the chase doesn’t necessarily lead to killing. ”

“Attacking a moving object is not always necessarily as an aggression,” Ogata concluded

Story by Elaine Furst for Dog Files

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Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago

I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, GrabPenny.com

Roma59
Roma59
12 years ago

Obviously the dogs are just doing their job!  Which is protecting their humans and their interests…or more pointedly protecting the interests of thje pack.

buy essay
12 years ago

crazy dog!

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