Do dogs ever want to commit suicide?

[Ck]

Overtoun Bridge in Milton, near Dumbarton, holds a curious, terrible power over dogs. It makes them want to jump off it.

The place is pretty creepy to start with, having been used as a backdrop for the BBC series, Tales from the Madhouse, perhaps prompted by the tragic scene in 1994 when Kevin Moy used the same location to throw his two-week-old son to his death, believing him to be the Antichrist.

Locally nicknamed Rovers leap, the jump from the bridge onto the waterfalls of the Overtoun Estate almost always results in immediate death or it leaves the dog so severely injured that they must have it put to sleep. Strangely though, some dogs have actually survived, recuperated, and then returned to the site to jump again. The dogs have mostly jumped from one side of the bridge, during clear weather, and have mostly been breeds with long noses.

So, what has turned this spot into the Beachy Head of the dog world? Dumbarton is a site of economic decline and regularly voted one of the most depressing places in Britain to live in Britain, but does that go for dogs as well as humans? Would a dog low in spirits jump off a bridge or would it just give you snotty looks then poo on your carpet? Can a dog actually commit suicide? Or as some people suspect, could this bridge possibly be haunted?

On the issue of whether a dog would intentionally kill itself, professional opinion is unanimous, they do not! Animals are capable of making mistakes, for instance a bird can build its nest to close to the ground but it would not be capable of taking its own life. A dog can get depressed and it can get anxious. But what it couldn't do is commit suicide because that would need a decision on a moralistic basis, and dogs, unlike humans, do not have the same moral sense.

There is also the problem that a dog has no sense of time, they react to the here and now, so even the forward planning required in connecting its depression with a future course of action would be beyond it.
It is not known exactly when or why dogs began to leap from the bridge, but studies indicate that these deaths might have begun during the 1950s or 1960s, at the rate of about one dog a month.

Many people believe theories such as the winds coming from Loch Lomond creating a noise that only dogs can hear, some quirk in the aerodynamics/acoustics of the bridge that makes the wind make a high-pitched noise that drives the dogs crazy. Some believe a ghost, perhaps of a lady who resided in the area, influences the dogs to jump off the bridge.

The phenomenon has received international attention. The Scottish society for the prevention of cruelty to animals has sent representatives to investigate. They found no abnormalities. Paranormal experts have travelled to the site to conduct investigations, and they too have not found anything unusual.

It's now thought that the most likely explanation seems to be the scent of mink coming up from below the bridge in combination with the solid walls of the bridge. The mink's powerful anal glands leave marks wherever they go and the strong musty smell they emit is proving irresistible to dogs. It would also explain why the deaths have all occurred on sunny, dry days, relatively rare on the notoriously wet west coast, when the mink smell has not been diluted by the damp weather. Furthermore, the theory fits with the timeline of the deaths, single minks were introduced to Scotland in the Twenties but only started to breed in large numbers in the Fifties which is when the mysterious dog deaths began occurring.

Although, for the ghost hunters, curiously, In Celtic mythology, Overtoun is known as 'the thin place', an area in which heaven and earth are reputed to be close.

Whatever the reason, the consolation to the families left behind is, that the dogs definitely didn't do it on purpose. They weren't depressed, and would never have intentionally left the family so bereft.

[LennyP]

I'm not sure that dogs don't have the abillity to want to kill themselves. My firends dog had cancer and was in a lot of constant pain and jumped off the deck to hang herself from a clothes line. Maybe it was just an accident but I don't think so. Scientists always want to say animals are not capable of human emotions but they have no real way of knowing.

[SFB]

I'm told that Barrow is probably more depressing than Dumbarton.

Having never visited either, I cannot comment.

[Zombie Mastermind]

Dogs don't want to kill themselves.

They can't even look up.

[Caz]

I'm told that Barrow is probably more depressing than Dumbarton.

Having never visited either, I cannot comment.

I lived in Barrow for 5 years. And yes it is depressing (well it was back then anyway!) Having never lived in Dumbarton, I'm not sure about the comparison.

As for dogs committing suicide. I think I could well believe it actually.

[ozzie]

I suppose that dogs and other pets could want to commit suicide. I heard on the news the other day that there are actually anti-depressants for pets. If they can be depressed then........

[SFB]

Pharmaceutical companies will make drugs for anything or anybody as long as they make multi millions.

It's my honest opinion that the majority of people are diagnosed with depression for the benefit of these companies. The likelyhood is that most of those people are simply pissed off and would have got over their problem within a short space of time, but due to prescribed medication will suffer for a lot longer and not only from depression!

[Victor29]

I've never seen my dog try to commit suicide

He must be a happy chappy then.

[A_B]

I believe that dogs do have some human emotions, so it's quite possible. I can see all different emotions 'similar' to a human in Yellow - he just displays them slightly differently. To be fair - I do think he's quite unique though.

[TVDinner]

If I could lick myself I would be the happiest dog in the world. In my opinion there is no fathomable reason to kill yourself .... if you can like yourself.