Man Eats Hero Dog To Survive In Wilderness

When wilderness adventures go wrong, they can turn quickly turn horrible. One would-be outdoorsman was rescued earlier this week after three months lost in the deep woods in Canada, but only after he was forced to eat the hero dog that had saved him from a bear attack.

According to the Toronto Sun, Marco Lavoie set out on the dangerous Nottaway River on July 16, intending to be out alone for a couple months. Not long after he set out, though, his camp was attacked by a bear. Lavoie's German shepherd managed to chase off the bear, but not before it had destroyed all of Lavoie's food and equipment. But after a few days stranded in the woods without any food, Lavoie made the difficult decision to kill his dog with a rock and eat it.

It's a terrible story, but survival experts say Lavoie made the right decision in that case.

"He survived because he made good decisions," said author and survival expert Andre Francois Bourbeau. "Eating his dog was one of them."

The Nottaway River area is considered particularly dangerous, even for veteran hikers. Lavoie was warned about the area and told it was a bad place to travel alone, but he said he was not afraid.

"Up there, in the Canadian shield, there's little plant life to live off," said survival teacher Caleb Musgrave, "so he would have been slowly, painfully dying when they found him. It's an amazing feat that he was able to keep himself alive this long with almost no equipment."

Lavoie was rescued on Wednesday and taken by helicopter to a hospital, where is reportedly in "very serious" condition.