I am sure the man regrets having to do this and will the rest of his life. Don’t point fingers unless you have been in this man’s shoes. Seems everybody wants to play the blame game, even people that should know better.
I probably would have killed the dog too, if I were in that situation.
But I’d like to think I wouldn’t get in that situation. They found him in the woods...there’s lots of stuff to kill and eat in the woods.
His problem, as I see it, is that he was not equipped to kill anything wild in the woods. So, he had to go to plan B, and kill the one tame animal, that would trustingly walk right up to him.
One .22 rifle would have changed his entire situation. Or even something as simple as a fishing hook. But is sounds like he just loaded up a bunch of food into a canoe and headed out into bear country, with no ability to ‘live off the land’ for even 3 days.
Once a year in the boy scouts, we would live off the land for 2 days. We weren’t allowed to hunt anything, but we could fish. And we all learned exactly what local plants were edible, etc. This guy was probably walking over stuff that was edible constantly.
So, I do blame him for not being prepared with equipment or knowledge...and setting up the situation that forced him to kill the dog.
Unless I walked in his shoes I refuse to cast any stones, however, I’m not sure what I would have done, thank heavens I would never have put myself in that predicament..