Viral video: watch these dogs herd and attack a shark

dogs-attack-shark — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sharks are scary. You certainly wouldn’t catch us in the water with them, but these two dogs are not afraid. The duo routinely swim in shark infested shallows and, as you can see, are not afraid to dive in and chase the sharks. While we can see this crass tendency to attack the ocean’s most dangerous predators leading to some horrible things in the future, on this day it is only amazing. This video was posted by YouTube user “ruste13,” a man who has a blog dedicated to his fishing adventures in Western Australia.

Though we have watched Shark Week religiously since our youth, we’re not sure what type of sharks these are. If any of you know, please enlighten us in the comments section.

This isn’t the first time a dog has attacked a shark. A 2006 YouTube video shows a shark fisherman’s dog attacking a hooked shark and dragging it to shore, and in 2008, a black Labrador attacked a tiny little shark in Alaska. However, these appear to be the largest sharks encountered by a dog on YouTube yet.

Life’s Little Mysteries (via LiveScience) has contacted a dog behavioral researcher to see if these dogs in the main video have a taste for sharks.

“It is difficult to say from this video if this dog had a particular interest in attacking sharks,” explained Niwaka Ogata. “The dog might have been equally likely to go after any big fish or other object floating in the ocean. Some dogs would react to any moving objects around them. We see similar behavior from a dog on a car ride. A dog might try to jump out of a car to pursue a land creature, just as the dog in the second video jumps off the boat to pursue a shark. If the dog in the first video did indeed chase and bite the shark, it was probably driven by the same instincts.”

Would you let your dog swim with the sharks? Man’s best friend could easily be a shark’s next meal.

Update: Fixed the video link, added a quote from a researcher.

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