10/24/2005: Dog becomes shark bait

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm having a hard time with that picture, after the initial revulsion.
There's no blood.
There's no tear around the hook.
It wouldn't work. If you tried to pull a dog that size through the water that hook would rip out quickly.

Something's fishy(no pun) here.

I assumed that the hook went through more than just the lip. That it went through the roof of the mouth and above the teeth. Hard to tell, but now that I look more closely, it does look like it just goes through the lip. Maybe these fishermen are incompetent as well as cruel.

[xoxoxoBruce]

*The hook would be inserted clean and obviously no tension was applied since

You may be right but it's hard to believe the dog didn't try to paw or shake it loose. Especially after escaping his tormentors.
I believe the story, I'm just having a tough time with this picture.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You may be right but it's hard to believe the dog didn't try to paw or shake it loose. Especially after escaping his tormentors.
I believe the story, I'm just having a tough time with this picture.

Same here - there seems to be a reasonable amount of proof that animals we consider pets are being used as bait, but the pic did raise questions in my mind.

Are sharks usually caught with live bait? (my experience of catching them begins & ends with Jaws). If so, how were the islanders catching them before the dog population exploded? Is it really that easy to catch and hook feral dogs? (I appreciate that the one in the pic is described as a pet, but an island population that has no real love of dogs surely can't have that many of them to dognap).

It does mention that the animals are usually hooked in more than one place - perhaps the paws take the brunt of it?