No, Your Pet Will Not Hesitate to Eat Your Corpse When You Die

Remember that unfortunate scene from Gerald’s Game? Not the one where Jessie decides to “unglove” herself, peeling back the skin of her own hand and using her blood as a lubricant to slip free from her handcuffs (spoiler alert). The other one: a stray dog wanders into the lakehouse, and ends up chowing down on Gerald’s corpse after he gets a heart attack mid-BDSM.

To be fair, the dog wasn’t theirs—Jessie and Gerald had only met the corpse-eating canine earlier that day. But apparently, that doesn’t matter either. Science confirms that your pets will definitely eat your body if you die before them, regardless of how much (you think) they love you. 

It’s a little offensive, considering all the hours you’ve spent trying to make them Instagram-famous. Not to mention the gigantic dent they make on your bank account. 

"Yes, your pets will eat you when you die, and perhaps a bit sooner than is comfortable,” forensic anthropologist Carolyn Rando tells Buzzfeed. “They tend to go for the neck, face, and any exposed areas first, and then, if not discovered in time, they may proceed to eat the rest of you.” 

Dogs vs. Cats: Who’s Less Likely to Eat You?

Here’s some more ammunition for the ancient cat-versus-dog debate: which of the two is less likely to eat your guts?

Cats get a bad rap for being the most enthusiastic about eating their owners’ corpses. Mike Delgado, a cat expert at Feline Minds and a postdoctoral fellow from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, only affirms our suspicions in an interview with Inverse: “If a cat is starving, there is no reason to think they would not eat available meat, even if that was human flesh.” 

Lest dog owners get too cocky, there’s also a questionable amount of forensic reports on dog owners being eaten by their alleged “furry friends.” One day in 1997, police was retrieving the body of a man who’d committed suicide when they noticed bite marks on his face. Upon transporting this man’s German Shepherd to an animal sanctuary, said dog proceeded to vomit what was clearly his owner’s skin and beard hair.

What’s even more offensive? Dogs might choose to eat your dead body first, even if they had other options. According to a 2015 study on “canine scavenging in indoor settings”—which compiled 64 sad reports—24 percent of dogs began eating their masters in under 24 hours, and some of them even did so despite having normal dog food available.

But whatever you do—do not underestimate the hamster. 

The Face of a Flesh-Eating Monster

We don’t even know why we’re surprised. These are the same critters that eat their own babies when they’re under stress. Arguably one of the most grotesque cases of indoor scavenging of all time involves a hamster who literally built a home with its owner’s flesh. The victim had passed away from pneumonia, and was found dead in her home with strange injuries on her face. Investigators found out that she had a free-range, golden hamster, and later on discovered said hamster’s burrow inside an open drawer—made with “fingernail-sized pieces” of human skin, fat, and muscle tissue. 

Nothing Personal?

Many studies assure us that our pets will only eat us after dramatically extended periods of hunger, but there are always exceptions to the rule. In the case of the retching German Shepherd, for instance, the dog didn’t last a day before eating its owner’s face. 

“It can happen quite quickly after death, especially if the animal becomes distressed,” writes the case’s forensic examiner, Markus Rothschild. “In this case, the dog may go to the owner to look for comfort, and lick or bite in the process, which may stimulate the eating process.”

In other words, sometimes animals need to stress eat, too. A lick of anxiety can easily escalate into a bite. And when that happens, the rest is history.

Love Is A Fickle Thing

In conclusion, love does not transcend death—as per Lil Dicky, love is a fickle thing. We’re heartbroken over here. Devastated, really. This is exactly why we have trust issues. As much as we’d like to view our pets as proof that “unconditional love” exists, it truly is every man (and pup, kitty, and hamster) for himself.