In 1908, the New York Times ran a story calling a dog in Paris a fake hero. But before you jump to the canine’s defense, you might want to hear why. It turns out he was a bit of a bad boy.
Dog Saves Child
As the story is told, a heard a child screaming for help one day by the Seine river in Paris. And like a proper hero, he jumped in to rescue the poor kiddo.
Of course, he was greatly rewarded.
It turns out that the slab of meat he received as a reward was something he didn’t want to give up. So he presumably figured he’d just wait by the Seine to see if his heroics could be of service again. And it didn’t take long for another child to fall in.
Once again, the dog saved the child and was rewarded.
Now, remember the story of Pavlov’s dogs.
“Fake hero” dog pushes children
Eventually, someone noticed that a suspicious number of children were falling into the Seine, and always nearby a certain meat-loving canine. At first, people thought there was some sort of child-drowning criminal wandering about the neighborhood.
It didn’t take long for people to figure out that the dog eventually started pushing kids in if he had to wait too long for a rescue and reward scenario to present itself.
That’s what landed him on the front page of the NYT in a story titled “DOG A FAKE HERO.”
Now, whether the story is true or not, we can’t say. We only know what the NYT reported. Sadly, they didn’t follow up on what may have happened to the dog nor did they mention whether or not any of the children noticed that they took a swim courtesy of the canine.
Source: “The Dog Who Kept Pushing Kids Into A River To Acquire Steak Rewards” — IFL Science