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One of our dogs is currently under very heavy medication (something similar to cortisone). Our vet who took this stuff herself during an illness described the side effects to be so exhausting it makes death seem the better option sometimes. A person however is capable of understanding the need of the treatment, what causes the side effects and that they will end after treatment. It is impossible to explain this to a dog.

In the last few days our dog fell into the pond several times while he tried to drink. He always drank from the pond before and normally isn't as clumsy, sometimes he really seemed to slip into the pond on purpose. This only happened after the dosage was reduced, before he was too exhausted to go outside most of the time. I am not interested in the cause of this behavior, as I am currently not near the dog and can't really judge the effect of the drugs on him.

Are dogs capable of committing suicide?
Are they aware of the consequences their actions have and can chose to die intentionally?

While there are some articles written about this topic, those I've found and the Wikipedia article on animal suicide are inconclusive.

Note: I am interested in research on this subject, opinions or anecdotal evidence can't really answer my question. An answer does not have to be specifically about dogs, but it should show that assumptions made on other animals apply to dogs, too.

Zaralynda
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Baarn
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2 Answers2

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This is an interesting question. Personally based on the information I've seen, I don't believe a dog has the cognitive ability to decide that death is better than their life. They probably can't even comprehend what "death" is. The idea of committing suicide is a very advanced thing to think about.

I'm sure we've all heard the classic idea of "self-awareness", where it was proposed that humans are the only animals that are self-aware. According to this wiki article, this idea extends to a few other animals, namely apes, elephants and dolphins.

Self-awareness

But self-awareness would probably be necessary to knowingly cause your own death.

Also, a smaller part of this I think would be the idea of time. When you commit suicide, you're deciding that your future won't get better over time. The Jury is out on whether or not one could consider a dog to have a sense of time, but there are some interesting reads

DOG BEHAVIOR
Do dogs understand the concept of time?

Overall I think that it's possible for a dog not to have the "will to live" but I think that choosing their own death is a bit too advanced for his mind

Chris
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I don't think that dogs "commit suicide" in the same sense as humans. That said, I do think that dogs decide when their time is up, and I think they generally do it by stopping their consumption of food entirely.

One of my dogs had an aggressive form of cancer, and when things really got bad she stopped eating. She was on various medications, including one to stimulate appetite, but she refused to eat anything no matter what. (We tried a lot of things.) The vet said that if she's refusing to eat then there isn't anything we can do. I think my dog knew that and it was her way of saying that it was her time to go. So in that sense I think she chose her fate, but suicide is more going out of your way to kill yourself, whereas refusing to eat is more passive.

Alex A.
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