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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/menchi.png
Menchi's two least favorite words? "Emergency Rations."

Billings: I say we drink the wine, eat the dogs, and use the papers for musket wadding.
Reverend: Eat the dogs?!
Benjamin: Aye, dog is a fine meal.
Billings: [enthusiastic nod]
Reverend: ...Good heavens.

Sometimes the Ridiculously Cute Critter in the series isn't the Team Pet. Sometimes the characters are just keeping this poor animal around as emergency rations. Humor is often obtained when the creature is aware of their fate. There may even be a minor subplot about it trying to escape. There's rarely any humor when people who do love their dog are forced to think about eating it because, you know, the world has ended.

Can cross over with Let's Meet the Meat and What Measure Is a Non-Human?. May involve Meat-O-Vision. More convenient than Reduced to Ratburgers, as edible pets are easier to catch (they may even come when you call...). See also No Party Like a Donner Party.

Not related to Kick the Dog or Shoot the Dog. If villains eat a certain type of meat to demonstrate how evil they are, you're probably looking at Exotic Entree. If a given culture is depicted as Acceptable Targets because they purportedly eat critters that another culture regards as pets, that's a form of Foreign Queasine (and the specific subtrope Asians Eat Pets). Please refrain from eating Tropey the Wonder Dog. He's our Team Pet, and we need him alive.

Contrast with Adopt the Food, for when the meal becomes the pet. No relation to If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten! (although both can overlap).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • There's a car-insurance ad in which a couple determined to save money are implied to have eaten their daughter's pet fish.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Barefoot Gen, a soldier teaches Gen and Ryuta to kill a dog and eat it to avoid dying of malnutrition.
  • In Cowboy Bebop, Spike speculates on eating the crew's pet super-intelligent Welsh Corgi Ein when he first meets him in "Stray Dog Strut". In the live-action adaptation, it's Faye who does this.
  • In Cyborg 009, the Pu'Awak humanoid race is used as this by the Athans, a race of scientifically advances winged dinosaurs. The Black Ghost group comes in and offers help, but soon they prove themselves to be just as bad as the Athans, and force the five Pu'Away princesses to be a part of their plans....
  • Darker than Black:
    • In an episode, Hei's landlady finds Mao (a human in a cat's body) wandering around the apartment complex (so he could relay orders to Hei) and she inquires if cats are eaten in Hei's home country, China. To Mao's chagrin, Hei jokes that it wouldn't be a bad idea.
    • In one of the gaiden episodes, there's a Contractor who is a human in a dog's body and she gestures to a nearby meat market to explain why she feels uncomfortable staying in an area. This scene is set in China.
  • Desert Punk:
    • Kosuna cooks and eats a dog she is walking to get revenge on her boss Kanta for getting her crappy jobs. In the anime the dog is replaced with a rare giant bug. According to Kosuna, dogs are commonly eaten as food and actually keeping a dog as a pet in this setting is considered an extremely strange thing only done by rich people.
    • The manga also has Kanta responding to a story about a stray dog attacking him when he took a crap in a bush by saying he also killed and ate the thing (thus, he "won").
  • Dragon Ball:
    • At least in the dub, there is an ongoing joke among the cast about eating Oolong, who is a talking shape-changing pig. He is also defensive when people look at him funny since he assumes they're thinking about eating him.
    • Goku muses briefly about eating Turtle after saving him from someone who did want to eat him. He decides against it, saying Turtle didn't look that tasty.
  • The trope is named for Excel's thought process right after she first found Menchi in Excel♡Saga (the manga even goes so far as to literally translate her name as "Mince"), where Excel boiled down Menchi's existence to the simple equation of "Dog = Creature = FOOD". The anime's Ending Theme is sung by Menchi, and bemoans the poor creature's fate while a hand — presumably Excel's — periodically enters with a salt shaker to make sure she's properly seasoned. Except in the bizarre final episode, in which the girl who usually translates the lyrics takes Menchi's place as the ingredient while Menchi translates the song into dog.
  • When Kain Fuery of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) finds a dog he can't keep, Jean Havoc jokes that he'll take the dog. After all, they are considered delicacies in some countries. He was kidding, but Fuery still won't let him have the pup.
  • Inverted in Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, where a hunter actually amputates his own foot to feed his dog, Riki (father of the protagonist) in order to give the dog enough strength to get help. In the original manga, this scene is also preceded by a Dream Sequence, where the hunter in question kills and eats his dog, which offers some interesting comparison. The scene from the anime adaptation can be watched here. (From 2:15 to 4:20)
  • In one episode of GUN×SWORD, Wendy puts her pet turtle in a turtle race in a casino. When Van finds out she bet all of her money, he starts shouting out threats to cook the turtle, causing it to move faster and win. There's good eating off a turtle.
  • In Inuyasha, Sesshomaru's mother briefly wonders if he's keeping Rin and Kohaku around as future snacks. A bit of irony as Sesshomaru is a dog youkai and Rin is a human, but youkai are known to eat humans.
  • In Last Period, Choco considers Miu, the team pet, to be "emergency rations". Erika officially approves of classifying Miu this way, in order to get around the "no pets" policy of the building they're renting.
  • One Piece:
    • When the crew first met Chopper, Sanji almost served him for dinner until they realized that he had human intelligence (and was a doctor). He still jokes that they're keeping him around as the 'emergency food suppy', much to Chopper's discomfort.
    • The Franky Family's team pets, Sodom and Gomorra had an origin similar to Chopper. The Franky Family found them inside a Sea King they were eating, and Franky decided to save them for later, as he and his men were full. Then Franky got all protective when some pirates hurt the pair.
  • Pokémon: The Series had references of people eating Pokémon in the original series, and that some were part of a food chain, particularly the Flying Types and the Bug Types. Over time, the Pokémon became noted to have human feelings, emotions and personalities, and while there is occasionally references in the games' Pokédex, it was completely removed from the show.
    • In one episode, just after escaping a sunken ship, they nearly eat James's new Pokémon, a Magikarp, as they were starving on their makeshift raft. This fails only because Magikarp's scales are too hard for Meowth to bite through.
      Misty: There's no way I'd try that again! Check your Pokédex because Magikarp is just scales and bones!
      Meowth: I wish you told me that sooner!
    • When Meowth was bonding with the egg that eventually hatched into Misty's Togepi, James spent most of the time hungering to cook it. At one point, he tried to serve Meowth scrambled eggs.
    • A later episode had Ash catch a Krabby (no prizes for guessing which animal inspired its concept...), and it's sent to Prof. Oak's lab. When Ash contacts him, he has a plate of crab with him. Krabby's fine, though. The 4Kids dub changed it to steamed tofu.
  • One of Ryōga's chief motivations to rid himself of his curse in Ranma ½ is so that he can stop being on someone's menu. Instants after first falling into the Spring of Drowned Piglet, he is picked up and nearly boiled. (Who boils a pig alive anyway?) Then Shampoo, who hasn't met him yet, runs into him and prepares him as a meal for Ranma (but he is still alive and whole, to Akane's relief). Then Cologne, Shampoo's great-grandmother, nearly slices him up for dinner before Shampoo (who knows better now) stops her.
  • In Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, the appropriately named Steak, while not a dog, definitely counts. Cute Monster Girl Niche has made it very clear from day one that he's only there in case she gets hungry, and she's even gone so far as to start cooking him a few times... which he is oddly accepting of. In fact, he's extremely violent toward pretty much everyone except the only person who has literally tried to kill and eat him.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann plays with this. The Team Pet Boota actually uses his tail and hindquarters as emergency rations for Simon and Kamina, so they can stop being hungry and kick ass. Boota really was supposed to be a meal for Kamina during his time in prison at the first episode, that they just never got around to eating.
    Kamina: [talking in his sleep] Grow into a big juicy steak for me to eat...
  • The horror manga Uzumaki plays this gruesomely straight in a scene which (fortunately) does not appear in the film adaptation. To make a long story sort, a curse has turned several people into giant snails. It doesn't seem like they have any human intelligence left, either, which is a small comfort as, desperate for food, the survivors turn to the snails... and this trope comes into effect as a group of explorers lead a cursed man around on a noose as their emergency food supply, just waiting for him to fully transform so they can chow down.

    Card Games 
  • The flavor text of the Magic card Snow Hound plays with this. To quote General Jarkeld: "If you're starving, eat your horses, your dead, or yourself — but never eat your dog."

    Comedy 
  • A Monty Python sketch that's only on one of their record albums has doctor Graham Chapman talking with pepperpot housewife Terry Jones, who offers him some more dog. He declines, she says "I'm just having one more!" — we hear barking, a gunshot, sizzling on a stovetop, and talking with her mouth full.
  • Dutch Comedian Herman Finkers has a musical bit about where Lassie saves a couple caught on a mountain from starvation. "Zijn daad heeft ons echt geraakt, geen hond die zo lekker smaakt." Quite literally, his deed touched us, not a dog that tastes as good.
  • Another Dutch comedian, Toon Hermans, had a famous routine about a dead pigeon, in which he mentions having lots of animals for his magic act, but then came the winter of 1944....

    Comic Books 
  • One story in Garth Ennis's Battlefields follows a German infantry unit through the invasion of the USSR. Early on, they pick up a stray dog, referred to as the "squad mutt". Towards the end, during the horrible Russian winter, we see them sitting around a fire eating stew. The most "innocent" member of the unit asks where the meat came from, and another replies "squad mutt". They then all go on eating without a pause.
  • In book two of Enemy Ace: War in Heaven Von Hammer and his wingman are having dinner, with the wingman complaining that being an officer in Luftwaffe should not mean having to pick whiskers out from his cat stew.
  • When Groo the Wanderer first meets the dog Rufferto, Rufferto thinks he's found a caring new master, but what he sees as Groo's affection is really just hunger.note  Soon afterward there's a story where Groo thinks he has eaten Rufferto, and is overwhelmed with guilt. When Rufferto finally shows up alive and well Groo really does become a caring master.
  • Lucky Luke:
    • In Nitroglycerin, Averell is stuck driving around the funeral hearse the Daltons stole while his brothers are trying to hijack the train, and begins to ponder eating the vulture that follows the hearse around when he gets hungry. The vulture gets creeped out and flies away. Mind you, this is less "last resort" food for Averell and more "feeling kinda hungry", since he's near-omnivorous and has eaten far more objectionable things than a scavenger bird.
    • In Alcatraz, Rantanplan ends up mistaken for a coyote by a Chinese restaurant (Rantaplan, naturally, mistakes it for a pet beauty salon and thinks the oven is a sauna). He's pulled out before he can be turned into Peking-style coyote.
  • The Lizard Lady in Negation names the last surviving Kaliman Retriever something that translates to "delicious treat" in her native language. Saurians are very indiscriminate eaters.
  • Tintin: In King Ottokar's Scepter, Tintin is snooping around a Syldavian restaurant and ends up ordering a meal to keep the cook from getting suspicious. After finishing, and enjoying the meal quite a bit, the cook tells him it's a Syldavian specialty made from the leg of a young dog, much to Tintin's horror, who only now notices that Snowy is missing. Thankfully, Snowy is fine... and took the opportunity to ransack the kitchen while the cook was keeping an eye on Tintin.
  • It would be a heroic labor to list all the unorthodox things people eat in the future of Transmetropolitan, from caribou eyes to Welshman legs. Most of it is cloned or replicated, however.
    • On one occasion Spider tosses a thug through a window and he crushes a sad looking puppy. Spider, shown abusing canines frequently, then announces that he's having that dog for dinner.
  • During an arc in Wolverine the eponymous anti-hero was being stalked across Canada by a Cylla, a half-cyborg and Bloodscream, a vampire, who occasionally captured a local to drag along in case he got hungry. Towards the end of the arc they were both starving to death. Luckily Bloodscream had one sheep left in his flock....
    • Wolverine meanwhile almost literally eats a dog. Technically it was a wolf that he fought and killed, but he lived off of the wolf carcass during the entire trek. The first thing he did when he reached civilization was scarf down a pile of burgers after confirming that they weren't wolf burgers.

    Comic Strips 
  • The Far Side:
    • One comic spoofed this, with a group of five castaways on a raft drawing straws to see which of them will be eaten, despite one of them being a dog. One of the people loses. (Word of God says the dog looks very smug at this outcome....)
    • Another cartoon has a man and a cow in a lifeboat. The man looks at the cow and sees steak, the cow sees the man as covered in grass and flowers....
    • And one where the entire trope is turned around. A rescue boat sees a floating life boat with a very happy dog. Neither rescuers notice the traces of clothes and the obvious fact that the dog ate 'em both to survive.
  • Garfield
    • In an early strip, Jon's parents cook his old pet chicken Nadine into soup, causing Garfield to exclaim, "She was family!"
    • A later strip:
      Jon: I had a pet named Henry back on the farm. Then one evening there was Henry on the dinner table... I loved that snake.
      Garfield: Times were tough.
    • Happens in a movie Garfield is watching on TV:
      First man: Well, pardner, that was the last bean.
      Second man: Yup, looks like we'll have to eat the cat.
      First man: I'll bring the taco shells.
      Garfield: Boy, are they going to get a nasty letter.
  • A The New Yorker cartoon once depicted an author writing about "blockade mutton". If a city has been blockaded long enough, the locals will be reduced to eating dog. At one point, his research fails him, but after a trip to a pet store and a (flexible) restaurant, he returns to his desk and types, "It is tough, gamey, and strong-flavored".
  • Rudi: After being badly bitten by a dog, Rudi buys a Korean cookbook and invites the owner and his dog for "dinner", while preparing everything.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • This was also a plot point in Babe.
  • Barking Dogs Never Bite: Yun-ju goes to the basement of the apartment complex to liberate the dog that he locked into a closet to die, only to find that the janitor has killed the dog and made it into a stew. Later, his wife's dog is kidnapped by a homeless man who intends to eat it.note 
  • Beetlejuice finishes up a tv advertisement for his services hollering along to a jaunty hoedown tune: "I'll eat anything you want me to eat, I'll swaller anything you want me to swaller, so c'mon down, I'll... chew on a dawg! OWOOOO!"
  • A Boy and His Dog: Inverted as the main character uses his love interest to save his dog from starving to death. Also, the dog is both sentient and telepathic.
  • One of the most infamous scenes in Count Yorga has the character Erica, who was recently bitten by the title character. Feeding on her pet cat as her vampirism starts to take hold.
  • As a bonus feature on the DVD of the Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake, a man holed up in a gun store keeps a video diary, and is often seen talking to a pet fish that'd belonged to his (deceased) little girl. Eventually starvation compels him to eat the fish, which he justifies as a Mercy Kill in such an unhinged rambling way that it's easily one of the most unsettling moments in the entire film.
  • In The Deserter, Kaleb claims that the reason Dog is following him is because an Apache once tried to eat him, and that Dog is looking for payback. It is unclear if he is joking or not.
  • In Defiance, as the refugees are starving in the depths of winter, Tuvia makes the difficult decision to shoot his horse (a gift from the Red Army) so they'll have something to eat. They also eat one of the Germans' dogs that they killed as it was attacking them.
  • In Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, after the kids return home from the supermarket and only being able to afford the necessities, one of the kids jokes about using their pet dog as emergency rations.
    Melissa: When our food's gone, we can eat Elvis!
  • The first Fantozzi film features the titular clerk taking the co-worker he's infatuated with to a Japanese restaurant (in 1970s Italy they were uncommon and seen as extremely exotic), where because of a mistake the chefs take the woman's beloved Pekingese dog, cook it and serve it to her. Needless to say, the date is a total failure.
  • Memorably, the protagonist eating a dog is the way both the novel and film version of High-Rise opens.
  • Invoked by the Gyro Captain in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior:
    Gyro Captain: It's my snake, I trained it, I get to eat it!
  • In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Robin's minstrels have to be eaten during a particularly desperate winter. And There Was Much Rejoicing. (Yaaaaay.)
  • Despite providing the page quote, this does not happen in The Patriot (2000). In fact, Benjamin Martin uses the dogs as a bartering tool with General Cornwallis (they were a gift to him from King George himself), and then whistles for them as he's leaving parley, keeping them for himself as pets.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean:
    • Almost in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. The group barely escapes an island of cannibals, except for that dog carrying the key. The cannibals chase after the dog and After the Credits he is shown to be have been made their chief. As we saw with Jack earlier, they believe their chief is a god trapped in physical form and want to free him from that "fleshy prison." Go on, guess how.
    • And then he appears in the third movie with Jack Sparrow's father, with the only explanation given for the dog's escape being "Sea turtles, mate."
  • In the movie The Quick and the Dead, gunfighter Dog Kelly is so named because of an event in his Back Story where he was forced to eat his beloved dog or face death by starvation. As a result, any mention of his nickname or the event in question is a good way to seriously piss him off, as evidenced in a deleted scene which had Ellen, the heroine, teasing him about it.
  • The first movie in The Shaolin Temple trilogy had the protagonist, Jue Yuan, killing and eating a dog out of hunger. And when a bunch of Shaolin monks caught him, he instead offers them a bite. And they love it!
  • The Sun's Burial is an unrelentingly grim tale of criminals and prostitutes in the slums of 1960 Osaka, Japan. It seems like the first moment of something not-terrible when one of the hoodlums brings out a puppy, and the other says it's a nice dog. The owner then answers "They're great when roasted."
  • A very off-color gag in Superman Returns features Lex Luthor abandoning and then 'rescuing' a Pomeranian. Actually, it was two Pomeranians, but when they got back to the mansion, one had eaten the other. The ending also implied that Lex and Kitty would soon eat the remaining dog in desperation on a desert isle.
  • Played for laughs in the French comedy Sur un arbre perché with Louis de Funès. The car containing the protagonists goes off a cliff but is caught in a tree on the way down. Being caught there a day or so, Louis's character gets hungry and starts gauging the girl's dog. Hilarity Ensues.
  • The Swarm (2020): Two examples.
    • First, Laura ends up letting a bunch of flesh-eating locusts loose when she trashes one of the tents containing them. The locusts attack Gaston and Huguette, carrying off the latter, who's later found half-eaten and covered in locusts.
    • The second example is more like feed the dog to flesh-eating locusts, which is what Virginie does to her neighbour's dog at one point.
  • There are a number of The Three Stooges films set at a cafe where events make it look like a dog is caught and cooked (usually into hot dogs).

    Literature 
  • Discussed and subverted in Stephen King's 11/22/63. Al's Famous Fatburger is called Al's Famous Catburger because it's priced well below the wholesale price of ground beef. Al later reveals that the price is so low because he has been using his ability to travel through time to buy meat at 1958's prices.
  • A literal example in Aztec: The Mexica brought chihuahuas on their war campaigns, as a self-transporting food source that also kept snakes and pests away from the camp site.
  • A Boy And His Dog by Harlan Ellison notoriously inverts this trope in its Twist Ending, when the boy eats the girl because she matters less than his dog. Compare film example above.
  • This is the driving point for the entire plot in Charlotte's Web. At least, after Wilbur's told by the goose that's what's going to happen to him eventually.
  • Defied in Children of the Dust. Just before the nuclear attack, Veronica has Sarah put the family dog, Buster, outside. It is stated that one of the reasons she does this is to avoid a scenario where she and the kids are forced to use Buster as a source of food.
  • Disturbingly inverted in two works by Orson Scott Card:
    • In one of the chapter-opening "quotes" in Children of the Mind: A man always keeps his dog around even though it cannot be taught anything useful or funny. His friends tell him, "That's not a dog, it's a wolf." Then there's a plane accident and the man is terribly injured. The dog strolls up and begins chewing on him, and his last thoughts are "Thank goodness at least one of us will not starve." "This is the most beautiful story I know."
    • Similarly in Xenocide, a character tells the story of a man and his beloved pet dog. The dog would learn no tricks, performed no useful function, and did not even seem particularly affectionate, but the man loved it. Then the man and his dog got into a plane crash in the mountains. The man was pinned under some debris, but the dog was largely unharmed. Unperturbed, the dog trotted up to the man and, rather than attempt to aid him in some way, began to eat his exposed entrails. The man's last thought was, "Oh, good. At least one of us will not starve." The purpose of this story is a matter for interpretation, but it appears to be an Aesop about unselfish love. Or something.
  • In The Count of Monte Cristo, Maximillien Morrel rescued Chateau-Renault during combat in North Africa, and as the two ended up in the desert without rations, they were forced to kill and eat one of their horses. Played for laughs when they recount the incident to their friends, there's a comment about it being tough (i.e. a difficult thing to do), which one of the friends jokingly interprets as a reference to the horse meat being tough. Also Hilarious in Hindsight because of the stereotype that French people love horse meat.
  • When introduced in Sojourn, the third novel of The Dark Elf Trilogy, Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarf, is fixated by the idea of eating Roddy McGristle's dog. At the novel ends, he ends up cutting off one of the dog's legs as punishment for its master's misdeeds, including assaulting his adopted daughter, and promptly decides "waste not, want not". It's mentioned afterward that he is quite horribly sick as a result.
  • The Dark Tower:
    • In the final book of the series, Susannah considers doing this to Oy the cute lil' billy-bumbler (basically a dog crossed with a raccoon) while she and Roland pass through a frozen wasteland (though she wants to kill him for his fur, not for his meat).
    • Earlier, in The Waste Lands Roland mentions that a billy-bumbler's meat is no good, and he'd rather eat a dog (which he did).
  • Discworld:
    • A running gag in Small Gods, when a deity is trapped in the form of a lower animal. There's good eating on a tortoise....
    • Also played with in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, when Malicia pretends to hold this view so she can provoke Maurice into talking again.
    • Also the subject of a weirdly upbeat running joke that various characters use to hint that they never had enough to eat as children. Even Vimes gets into it at one point. "The small animal looked up at him. He remembered how he'd always wanted a dog as a child. Mind you, they'd been very hungry. Anything with meat would have done." And in another book: "Pets can be a great comfort in times of stress. And in times of starvation, too."
    • And in Interesting Times, the barbarians are rather shocked to discover that the Agatean word "chow" isn't a general term for food...
      "There's nothing wrong with it," [Teach] said hurriedly, with the sincerity of a man who had ordered bamboo shoots and bean curd for himself.
    • In Making Money, Moist and Adora very briefly think that a golem who is crushing on Moist (It Makes Sense in Context) has, in a fit of jealousy, cooked up for Moist's dinner a small dog whose well being is incredibly vital to Moist's cherished state of not being assassinated. Fortunately, this turns out to be a false alarm.
    • In Men at Arms it's implied dwarves will do this if they can't get hold of rat,note  although in Feet of Clay Gimlet pads his stock with steak, beef and chicken instead.
    • In Soul Music, one of the other boarding-school girls accuses Gloria Thogsdaughter of having this intention when she catches the dwarf student looking at the outraged girl's pet pony. And salivating.
  • There are several references to lyorn legs being served as meat in the Dragaera novels. A lyorn is essentially a large dog with a horn on its head.
  • In one of the Dragonlance books, Tasslehoff is captured by the minotaurs, and is quite jarred when he finds out that those lovely monkeys they keep around their ship are actually their meal.
  • The Hunger Games: "No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog."
  • Letters Back to Ancient China: The narrator protagonist (a time traveller from medieval China) has to find out that sadly, in today's Germany you won't get Pekingese's liver and such.
  • Jack London is generally quite fond of this trope.
    • Variation: Story To Build a Fire features a man freezing to death, who decides to cut open his dog and put his hands inside for warmth, Tauntaun style, so he can build another fire after his first attempts failed. He ends up unable to do it. He makes the attempt, but the dog manages to avoid him until his hands are too numb and stiff to unclasp his knife anyway, and the man dies while the dog bugs off back to camp. Buddy system, people!
  • Make Room! Make Room! has a scene where a character visits a black-market butcher shop and is offered "leg of dog" as a sought-after delicacy.
  • Angela Wright's Potato People plays the trope straight.
  • In some versions of Puss in Boots, the titular Intellectual Animal begins assisting the protagonist after hearing the latter's plans to eat him and sell his pelt.
  • The titular raven in Raven of the Inner Palace, the Raven Consort Shouxue has thought about doing this to her golden chicken companion, Xingxing, multiple times, from the time she was taken in for training. She suspects that this is why it keeps her at arm's length most of the time. At one point, to get it to shut up when she's sneaking out, she grabs its beak and threatens to roast it whole. Xingxing, being attached to living, promptly retreats back into the Yeming palace.
  • Averted in one of The Vampire Files, when Escott offers to find a friendly dog and bring it in for injured Jack to feed on. Jack, who likes dogs, is horrified at the notion and sends Escott out to the Stockyards with a jar and syringe instead.
  • In David Gerrold's The War Against the Chtorr novels, it appears that, at best, this might be the role assigned to humans in the invading Chtorran ecosystem. It's already the role assigned to the cute Chtorran bunnydogs.
    • Not to mention the captured Chtorran worm that's fed with stray dogs.
  • Neverwhere: When Richard is with the group of Rat-Speakers, Anasthesia asks him if he likes cats. When he says he does, she asks, "Leg or breast?"
  • Stalin's Nose by Rory Maclean has the author, his aunt, and her pet pig Winston doing a road trip through Eastern Europe. Winston ends up disappearing at the end of the book after they make the mistake of leaving him in the care of a Russian who had expressed a repeated desire to buy Winston to sell his meat on the black market.

    Live-Action TV 

  • In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David believes that his Korean bookie kidnapped and ate Jeff Greene's dog.
  • Joked about in Elementary when Sherlock adopts a tortoise named Clyde after its owner is killed, claiming that he's going to make soup from him once he's fat enough. Joan's not sure if Sherlock is joking until he says he actually loves the reptiles and could never eat them. Clyde instead becomes a Team Pet who appears throughout the series.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise
    • In "Rajiin", an alien merchant offers Captain Archer a little critter who can be either a pet or a snack.
    • In "Babel One", the Enterprise is hosting a delegation of Tellarites, and Hoshi warns the captain to keep his pet beagle Porthos out of sight as their species consider canine to be a delicacy.
  • The Goodies:
    • Intercepted in an episode with Bill taking care of a guinea pig that Tim is holding.
      Bill: Just be careful, he's sick.
      Tim: What's wrong with him?
      Bill: He's off his food — he hasn't eaten for days.
      Tim: ...Well, neither have I... I'm starving. ... [opens mouth, leans down]
      Bill: Don't eat him!
    • Also, caused much Squick in an episode where The Goodies are trying to write a nice, clean song that'll make the charts... but they have to make a filthy song first to be discovered. Thus, Bill writes one seconds before they go on a show with a talent agent. It's called "Mommy, I Don't Like My Meat", and is about a man with a wife and child. He can't work because of his broken leg, and thus slaughters their pets to feed their child.
      The budgie's now chicken
      ...
      Tomorrow we'll curry the poodle
    • In The Goodies and the Beanstalk, the grand prize is 5000 puppies which, if no-one claims the prize, will all be given to Indian restaurants.
  • In an episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive, a man is lost in the Amazon rainforest with his dog for a companion. Facing starvation, and not being able to find any food except some berries (which his body rejects), he is forced to bludgeon the dog over the head to kill and eat him. Unfortunately, his body rejects this as well.
  • The Last Place on Earth: Simply part of the exploration of Antarctica. Roald Amundsen can only carry so much dog food and people food, as his dogsled teams race to the South Pole, so when the time comes, they start shooting and eating the dogs.
  • The Mandalorian. In "The Siege", a gang of Aqualish criminals are shown to have a ferret-like critter in a cage. Their leader says, "Won't you be delicious", grabs it from the cage and slams it on the table to be gutted. Then Cara Dune turns up to shoot it out with the gang, and finds herself being adopted by the critter.
  • M*A*S*H:
    • Not explicitly dog, but Col. Sherman Potter has as a Berserk Button, the eating of horses. He delivers a rant about it in one episode, where he basically says that cows are such ugly wretched beasts that when people eat them they're doing them a favor, but horses are noble and beautiful animals. Might have something to do with the fact that he was in the Cavalry at one point.
    • Invoked by Pierce in an episode where he's been forced to take shelter with a Korean family (none of whom speak English). At one point they serve him some stew. He takes a bite and says something like "Meat? Where did you get meat? ... [looking around suspiciously] Where's the dog?" After a moment, the dog barks offscreen, to Hawkeye's visible relief.
  • Joked about by the MythBusters, during the myth intro for Saint-Bernard Rescue. After Adam delivers a dramatic account of how that cask of brandy around the dog's neck saved a man dying of exposure,
    Jamie: Or this [the brandy] is like an aperitif before I eat the dog.
    Adam: You can't say that.
  • Sam on NCIS: Los Angeles once claimed this was one reason he'd prefer pet fish to having a dog or cat: if it didn't work out, there's always the "sushi" option with a fish.
  • In an episode of Roundhouse, the focal boy imagines visiting the home of his crush from a foreign country. It doesn't become nightmarish until he asks to feed the cute little dog and hears, "Of course; we are fattening him up for dinner!"
  • John Sheppard of Stargate Atlantis offered to eat Beckett's pet baby turtles in one episode and McKay's whale buddy (It Makes Sense in Context) in the next. (He's mostly joking.)
  • In the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! segment "Quilting with Will," Will Forte's character has a Freak Out when he's reminded of his abusive father and has flashbacks about his childhood. It's pretty clear from his ranting that he was forced to cook and eat his own dog.
    "No child should be made to do that! Dogs should be raw, and living!"
  • Referenced on The Young Ones:
    Vyvyan: That's what we agreed when we first came: you do the cooking, I'll look after the plants and the goldfish.
    Neil: Yeah? And what did you have me cook on that first day?
    Vyvyan: Sausages! It was a Tuesday.
    Neil: Sausages and...?
    Vyvyan: [sigh] Sausages and plants and goldfish. Look, I've discharged my responsibilities, Neil - now you discharge yours.

    Manhwa 
  • In Vagrant Soldier Ares, the titular character names a crow that follows him around, "Emergency Ration." His definition of "Emergency" is a bit loose though.

    Music 
  • A comedy song by Tony Hendra and Nick Ullett entitled "Rover (The Shaggy Dog Story)" is about a man and his dog who get lost in the desert, eventually leading to this trope.
  • The Hamilton Mixtape the troops in "Valley Forge" are so desperate for food that they've killed and eaten the horses they brought for riding.

    Puppet Shows 
  • In the Muppet audio-drama version of The Frog Prince, Sweetums the Monster and the Witch have captured a frog (Kermit's nephew Robin):
    Witch: He could be your pet, your friend, your —
    Sweetums: Breakfast!
    Witch: That, too!
  • Toyed with on The Muppet Show; Miss Piggy asks the Swedish Chef if he's seen her dog Foo-Foo, to which Chef responds that the dog is in the pot. He means that he's making hot dogs (meanwhile Foo-Foo was locked in a cabinet backstage), but Miss Piggy assumes the worst. HAI-YAH!

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dead of Winter allows you to sacrifice characters to save the colony. An often used remark when it's Sparky (a dog), is that there's now plenty of Sparkyburgers to eat now.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • A running joke is that a wizard's familiar is only useful for emergency rations.
    • The Complete Book of Villains, a supplement for 2nd Edition, featured a warlord called Bakshra the Dog Eater as a demonstration NPC. As a child, Bakshra had been tricked into eating his beloved pet dog as a cure for a curse-imposed illness, and he obsessively continued the practice as a grown man.
    • The Dragon article "Ecology of the Steeder" claims that steeders (giant spiders used by duergar as mounts) are used as food often, much like cattle are. The Villain Protagonist of the article shows him raising a steeder who serves him as a loyal mount most of his life; when said steeder dies in a brutal battle, he mourns its death, but still cooks and eats it.
  • Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000:
    • In 40K, the goblin-like Gretchin, or Grots, serve as the weak but brainy backbone of Ork "civilization", working as unskilled laborers, farmers, merchants, bankers, and assistants to Ork Meks or Painboyz. In appreciation, the Orks use the poor Grots as cannon fodder, minesweepers, ammunition for some of their more twisted weapons, and of course, snacks.
    • Their fantasy counterparts, the goblins, in Warhammer are in pretty much the same boat. It's treated indifferently by the goblins themselves, since they readily kill and eat one another all the time.
    • Likewise, in both games, squigs. Admittedly, since a squig is a carnivorous Planimal fungus monster that's at least 80% teeth and bad attitude, this is more of a case of Eat the Dog Before the Dog Eats Me.
      • There's even a specific breed of particularly toothy, ill-tempered squig used for the specific sport of "Eat the Dog Before the Dog Eats Me". To play, you take the squig, face it towards yourself, and take a bite. If you weren't the one eaten, congratulations, you win.

    Theatre 
Suggested in the comedy play The Conquest of the North Pole by Jára Cimrman, but they didn't have any dogs, they have ...oh, I get it

    Video Games 
  • In Company of Heroes 2, giving a Pak 40note  crew an order to move sometimes yields this quote.
    "We ate the horse, remember? Now start pulling!"
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, if the player gives Leliana a pet Nug (an animal used as foodsource for Dwarves), Oghren tells her that if it doesn't leave him alone he might just get hungry. However, he's promptly disgusted that she names it Schmooples.
    • And in the sequel, your cat-loving party member Anders complains that the cats all seem to have disappeared from the slum where he lives and speculates that maybe the refugees drove them off... or ate them.
  • Dwarf Fortress allows your dwarves to literally eat dogs. And cats. And horses. Really, they'll happily hunt or butcher just about anything that moves and doesn't talk back (and even then, you can edit the raw files....).
    • This is usually considered one of the best ways to control cat populations.
    • Averted in the case of specific animals adopted as pets. The rest of the fortress won't care about them any more, but the ones that took it as a pet will go on a giant Roaring Rampage of Revenge if their beloved kitty is slaughtered. Matt Boyd once told of how one of his fortresses collapsed that way; since the source cats were pets, he couldn't slaughter them, and even after he curtailed all activity not related to controlling the cat population, they were simply being born too fast to really put a dent in the population.
    • And now that herbivore animals have to graze on grass to survive, it is actually more convenient to use cats and dogs as livestock, as feeding mechanics for carnivores haven't been implemented yet.
  • Usagi, Pleinair's rabbit (and in Disgaea 2, the one who's actually reading the news in place of Pleinair), is referred to as such. In Disgaea 2, he is joined by a shark in this regard—or is it a shark-like demon?
    • Zombies are apparently used in some Netherworld recipes. There is also mention of "Prinny Juice", though whether acquiring it involves killing the Prinny is unknown.
  • Every main game in the Fallout series includes a dog named Dogmeat — the same one in the first and second, his descendants in the third and fourth. The name is a reference to this possibility, and in games where he isn't essential and thus immortal, if he dies you can loot his corpse for meat.
    • In the 3D games, you can cut meat from fallen dogs. Some of these dogs are domesticated dogs. Then again if you kill dogs belonging to a faction that's an enemy to you (or to everyone, there's an infamous raider raising a large pack of dogs in Fallout: New Vegas and she just shoots anyone not from her gang on sight), why not grab the meat? Better than letting the vultures take care of it.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, it's revealed that Gilgamesh had a poor handle on his funds and he was ultimately forced to eat his chicken, Enkidu. Though near the end of the quest line he's involved with, Enkidu shows back up, no worse for the wear, making Gilgamesh wonder what chicken he did eat.
  • A cutscene in Freedom Fighters (2003), the scrolling text during a Soviet propaganda news broadcast tells the people of New York City that they can surrender their pets at a predetermined spot if they can not feed them. The same text scroll mentions that anyone needing extra food can pick up cheap meat at that same address.
  • Early on in Genshin Impact, the player has the option of introducing fairy Mascot character Paimon as "emergency food". It's become a minor, albeit somewhat Overused, Running Gag in the game itself, and a major meme to the fandom. Later on, another character asks if Paimon is edible, and the player has the option to respond with "Dig in." Word of God even states that about 2/3 of players call Paimon 'Emergency Food' in the first dialogue they could do so.
  • Defied in God Eater 2. At one point, the crew rescues a capybara, who they adopt as a pet and name Cappy. Since there aren't many animals left in the world, it's stated that the morale boost from having a live Ridiculously Cute Critter is worth much more than whatever meat it could give.
    "Although there are rumors that it is being kept on hand as emergency provisions, animals are valuable and treasured creatures, and its consumption is strictly prohibited."
  • One of the TV stations in Grand Theft Auto V advertises a reality cooking show called Dude Eat Dog, a parody of "extreme" food shows like Man v. Food.
  • Examining a stewpot in the first town in Icewind Dale 2 (which is under siege when you arrive) causes your character to note that they haven't seen too many dogs around.
  • Another pet pig sacrificed itself in Illusion of Gaia to save the party from cannibals. Stop laughing! Apparently for Hamlet, it was "not to be".
    Eric: Poor Hamlet; To eat, or not to eat?
  • The Lost Crown gives you the option of befriending a pig named Cairon, which grunts happily each time you share your lunch with it. Try not to grow too attached to the animal, because there's barbecue on the menu for the May Day Fayre....
  • In NetHack, you get a pet at the beginning. Eating/Sacrificing it is probably not smart. Actually the game will punish you for eating any cat/dog corpse, even if it wasn't your pet, unless you are playing a caveman/cavewoman or an orc of any class. Sacrificing anything that died while tame is still a bad idea even for those characters however.
  • From The Oregon Trail II on (as well as later versions of the first game), if you are nearing starvation, or a draft animal dies, you get the option to slaughter/butcher an animal for food.
  • In Organ Trail, one of your party members may find a kitten while driving and ask you if they can keep it. Replying "yes" gives you the message "Obtained 10 oz of food."
  • In Planescape: Torment, a merchant looking to sell you a Lim-Lim (a large insect-type thing that behaves much like a puppy) as a pet confides to you in a whisper that they make pretty good eating in a pinch. If you buy one, it never happens that you have to test the theory, though.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, Swellow and Wurmple (that is to say, a bird and a worm) make up Team Tasty. Wurmple spends the entire game wondering whether he's Swellow's emergency food supply, and Swellow's constant exclamations of "Try to guess what I most want to eat right now!" don't help. Amusingly enough, when Wurmple finally gathers the courage to ask him if indeed he is this, Swellow is surprised and shocked, and makes it clear he considers him his best friend and would never eat him.
  • Discussed in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon in certain parts of the final dungeon and occasionally elsewhere in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise; apparently if one eats one's demon en lieu of being driven to such hunger, one can absorb part of the demon's power.
  • RimWorld gleefully allows players to slaughter, butcher, and eat anything that moves, and set up a breeding program to make more of it, if desired. Dogs are actually a decent choice for utility, since they can be trained to haul and fight and are therefore useful for other things — and considering a desperate colony (or sadistic player) will find itself eating long pork, dog isn't so bad, really. However, killing an animal that is considered a pet (bonded to a colonist and named) will cause other colonists to slightly dislike the person responsible for the slaughter, even if it was the only way to save the colony. Not limited to dogs (though the game does feature yorkies, labs, and huskies, as well as wolves and wargs, all edible), colonists may also dine on cat, chinchilla, monkey, elephant, turtle, etc, among many other species.
  • In Rule of Rose, the bunny that Wendy takes care of is implied to be this. While most inhabitants of the orphanage probably see it as livestock, it is left ambiguous, if Wendy thought of it as that or a pet. She sees it as worthless lifestock.
  • A Running Gag in RuneScape is the lack of horses. In the quest "Bringing Home The Bacon", Eli Bacon alludes to a species of "hornless unicorn" which was hunted to extinction for its meat....
    • The player character's reaction to eating pigs' meat suggests this trope as well, though their only other purpose is apparently greased pig wrestling.
  • Rosarita ("Rosita") Aries of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love treats her pet weasel Niccolo like this.
  • Sunless Sea has a Comatose Ferret, a mascot which gives 1 stat point to your charisma / healing skill when equipped. It's clearly not as useful as every other mascot in the game, but if you're out of food and your crew is starving, there's not much point in keeping it any longer - especially since your hunger causes you to hallucinate it being a giant sausage. Unless you want the sociopathic fashionista gunnery officer to turn it into a hat instead.
  • Sunless Skies has An Obviously Delicious Rabbit. Which is delicious. Obviously. If your food supplies run low, you can also eat the Inadvisably Large Dog... though this absolutely demolishes crew morale.
  • Vermintide II: Played for Laughs regarding the other heroes' bemusement at Bardin's Extreme Omnivore tendencies (the dwarf also eats paintbrushes). When Bardin reminisces about fighting alongside the Duke of Parravon, who graciously gifted him a pedigree pony later...
    Sienna: Oh, I think I know where this is going.
    Bardin: Roasted a treat, it did!

    Web Comics 
  • Channel Ate has this happen in one strip. Its implied that this was completely unnecessary and its owner was just being cruel... or was just very hungry.
  • In the Fan Webcomic by Q-Ice, Vita from Lyrical Nanoha is a Little Miss Badass, Noble Wolkenritter, Mighty Iron Hammer Knight, and Hayate's Emergency Food Supply.
  • Schlock in Schlock Mercenary is an Extreme Omnivore, and has no problem eating animals most people think are cute.note 
  • You can eat your virtual pets in Sluggy Freelance.
  • Monsters in the world of Step Monster have pretty strong predatory instincts when it comes to small animals, so they tend to eat cats and dogs without thinking about it if they're peckish and there's nothing else to grab. Matilda herself eats someone's dog without the Millers seeing it in the first volume, and in a Black Comedy Brick Joke burps up its collar at the volume's end before noting that pets aren't a good idea while she's living with them.
  • Twisted Tropes: The Thundercats team is starving, so they cook Snarf for whining.
  • Played for laughs in Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal (2022), where Pizza Dog Pizzeria boasts that their pizzas are made with real ingredients like real cheese, real tomatoes, and real dog.

    Web Original 
  • One short video shows someone grabbing a puppy from a litter to put it into a cooking pot... only for an adult dog to stop them.
  • In one Dragon Ball Z Abridged movie, Goku, out for a picnic with Gohan, Krillin, shapeshifting pig Oolong, and Gohan's pet dragon Icarus, told the villain to stay away from "my food, my friend, my two emergency foods, and my son. In. That. Order." Goku actually does eat Icarus at the end.
  • Dream Shorts: In "Dream Team Stranded On An Island", where Dream, George, Sapnap, and Patches (Dream's cat) are stranded on an island without a way to escape for so long that Sapnap proposes that they eat Patches to survive.
  • hololive:
    • Mumei Nanashi, the Cute and Psycho owl-themed Anthropomorphic Personification of Civilization, was asked in her November 28, 2021 Q&A stream as to which one Hololive member, be it from the English, Japanese, or Indonesian branches, she'd want with her if she was stranded on a desert island. She cheats and picks one from each branch... Hakos Baelz, Usada Pekora, and Ayunda Risu. She initially says it's for no particular reason, but then "slips" and says that those are the three she'd pack in her lunchbox. (For those not in the know, the latter three are themed around rodents/lagomorphs, the Stock Animal Diet for owls and other birds of prey.)
    • In Nodoka Narusaki's introduction, A-chan mentions that that some Hololive idols can be used as emergency rations showing Watame Tsunomaki, Pekora Usada and Kiara Takanashi among them.
  • In Red vs. Blue The Recreation:
    Simmons: Dogs are loyal too but that doesn't mean you can't eat them when you're stranded in an arctic outpost and Command can't get rations through because of a seasonal blizzard.
    Donut: That seems like a very specific example...
    Simmons: I don't want to talk about it.
  • Whateley Universe:
    • Sara/Carmilla sucks the souls from dogs and other animals with her tentacles, for most meals. Yes, she's one of the good guys, at least at the moment... But the way she eats cause her tons of grief, especially early on. She very blatantly had puppies in her box at least once. And a lot of times old, worn out dogs who suffered more by living, and seemed to want a release from it. Right from the local pound in Dunwich.
    • For that matter, the school cafeteria, having to deal with the dietary needs and occasionally odd tastes of hundreds of mutant teenagers, seems generally able to provide pretty much anything if given sufficient notice in advance. In one Heyoka story, one Jerk Jock is forced to literally eat dog (though not a live one) in front of all the other students in order to break a curse he's brought on himself.

    Western Animation 
  • Sokka of Avatar: The Last Airbender tends to want to eat every animal smaller than him he comes across, of course, he never gets a chance to do that. In fact, the first animal he tried to eat ended up becoming the team's pet, Momo.
    • And when Momo goes missing, Sokka angrily accuses Appa of eating him.
      • Also averted by the Foggy Swamp tribe; when Sokka asks why they don't eat the catfish crocodiles, they are disgusted at the notion and say that they regard the creatures as being like family.
  • In one episode of The Fairly OddParents!, the Yugopotamians are invaded by a race of ultra-cutsey aliens, thanks to the Yugopotamians being freaked out by anything "nicey". The Giggle Pies, as the invaders are called, use their fluffy-wuffy looks to charm Cosmo and Wanda until Cosmo, in one of his usual fits, eats one of them and disgustedly remarks that they taste just like manure. Manure happens to be a delicacy on Yugopotamia, and the Yugopotamians aren't exactly happy about being enslaved....
  • Family Guy does this in a Star Wars parody:
    "Hey Luke, whatever happened to that dog we stole from the Death Star?"
    "I KILLED IT AND ATE IT!!"
    • In "Dog Gone", when everyone ignores Brian's PSA and complain that they can't go vegetarian, Brian angrily tells them that dogs are eaten in some countries. Unfortunately, this just makes everyone curious about how dogs taste and they decide to try eating some... starting with Brian!
    • When the Griffins became lost on Mt. Everest, they survived by eating a dead body they discovered. A bit later, Stewie wonders why they resorted to cannibalism, instead of just killing and eating Brian.
  • Done repeatedly in Futurama with the resident Butt-Monkey Dr. Zoidberg, a lobster-like alien. One episode has the crew stranded at the bottom of the ocean with no food:
    Hermes: There are rules for situations like this[holds up 'Code of Conduct for Cannibalism]. Now, the first order of business is lunch. I suggest a nice Lobster Zoidberg. I mean, Lobster Newberg. I mean Doctor Zoidberg.
    • In a what if episode, Leela went berserk and killed everybody, except Fry. After killing Zoidberg, the next morning you see a plate with chopped and boiled Zoidberg on it.
    • This actually happens quite often in Futurama, since in the future we apparently have less strict diets and eat animals that are considered off-limits today, such as parrot and peacock (the gag is that 21st Century preservation methods worked too well, and now the animals are overabundant). Nibbler also devours any animal indiscriminatelynote , and so does Zoidberg, though Zoidberg usually sticks to small animals. It's established that humans find it acceptable to eat any animal that's not intelligent. That means individually. A particularly stupid family of dolphins is mentioned as being fair game.
    • In the Christmas Episode, Fry buys a parrot to give to Leela for an X-Mas gift. The parrot escapes its cage, is blown up by one of Robot Santa's missiles, and served by Bender as X-Mas dinner.
  • In an episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise inadvertently ends up insulting a lava worm, who insults her back. At the end of the episode, she serves Jimmy a meal, saying that she hopes the lava worms aren't too chewy. At this, the lava worm's friend (seen earlier in the episode) walks by, looking for his friend.
  • In King of the Hill, the Soupanousinphones (who are Laotian) move into the neighborhood and after not being able to find Ladybird or Doggie (Hank's and the Soupanousinphone's dogs) Hank thinks he was served the dogs at a barbeque. But they weren't. Bobby and Connie let the dogs off their lines and they ran away (but came back in the end.)
    • In another episode, Dale and a survivalist friend try to buy every dog that the animal shelter has in order to have meat to survive Y2K.
  • Me and My Moulton: The narrator says that her neighbors' dog was named after Fridtjof Nansen's dog, and that on his polar expedition Nansen ate all his dogs except that one. This is accompanied by a scene where a cartoon Nansen plucks a dog collar out of his soup.
  • Emperor Belos from The Owl House maintains his health by cracking open and feeding on the magical bile of palismen (familiars carved from a special type of wood). Not only is this particularly cruel due to the fact that palismen are shown to be completely sapient, but the trees used to make them are incredibly rare and he's been doing it for the better part of four centuries.
  • In The PJs, Thurgood wishes to eat Miss Avery's pet dog because the dog has eaten his last little blue pill and he wants to be intimate with his wife because it's their anniversary. He even says "Think, Thurgood, there's a perfectly logical way to eat that dog."
  • Subverted in Robot Chicken. George W. Bush gets a gremlin as a gift (from the Japanese). After a couple of scenes of them being buddies, the Gremlins get the nuclear launch codes and FIRE ZE MISSILES. In the rubble with his wife, the Gremlin, and Cheney, Bush says that they need to eat Froot-Loop (the gremlin) before saying he's just joking and that they'll eat Cheney instead.
    • Likewise in a Star Trek sketch at the end. Kirk, Bones, Spock, Layla, and Toby the Red Shirt have escaped onto a nearby planet after their ship explodes. Having no food on hand, the main crew take a vote and decide to eat the Red Shirt. However, he turns out to expect this and reveals he was the only one who brought a phaser.
      Toby the Red Shirt: Oh hell no! On behalf of all the Red Shirts that fell before me, it makes me very very proud to speak the following sentence: I'm the only one that brought a gun.
    • In another skit, Aqualad is talking with the other sidekicks about Aquaman's last Aqualad, a merman who was more "mer" than "man". When Aqualad asks what happened to him, it cuts to Aquaman in the arctic in front of a crashed plane, screaming in (apparent remorse)
      Aquaman: Why?! Why?! *cut to the former Aqualad on a spit with a giant chunk bitten out of him* Why is there no tartar sauce?!
  • In The Simpsons, all it takes for Bart is being sent to his room without any dinner, and he already feels so hungry he begins to visualize Santa's Little Helper's head as a pizza box, with his lolling tongue as a slice. The dog seems to realize the strange look he's giving him, as he whimpers and bolts out the door.
    • In "A Tale of Two Springfields", New Springfield, which is run by Homer, is facing a food shortage since Old Springfield has blocked the roads as part of their feud. Homer's plan for dealing with it begins with "The following breeds of dog are edible..." He doesn't have a chance to implement it, since every other citizen of New Springfield abandons him, leaving him and the family as its sole occupants (even the tumbleweeds left).
  • Total Drama
    • In World Tour, Cody is challenged to eat donkey meat after having spent the first part of the episode riding a donkey to victory. It isn't clear if it's the same donkey, but Cody suspects so, and refuses to eat.
    • In Pahkitew Island, Clucky is last seen being taken away Hannibal Lecter style after having gone insane and subjecting Team Kinosewak to Electric Torture. When the challenge winners don't seem too keen on eating the episode's sponsored meal, Chris adds a second option: chicken made by Chef.
  • In The Venture Brothers Season 3 finale, Sergeant Hatred bragged that he "ate a whole Labrador Retriever once" during a bragging contest with Doctor Venture.

    Real Life 
  • The Philippines. Oh, them and their azucena.
  • Dogs in Mesoamerican civilizations were in fact raised specifically for this purpose (the only other domesticated animal on the Aztec menu being the turkey, aside from other sources), which means you shouldn't be too surprised that your Chihuahua is a bit twitchy.
    • The Incans had guinea pigs for food, called cui. They still do in some places, such as Ecuador (there, the spelling is cuy).
    • Technically, the Xoloitzcuintli (the Mexican Hairless) should be a lot twitchier, since it was the most common source of dog meat.
    • The Incas (and other cultures before them) also bred their own Peruvian Hairless Dog for the same reason.
    • Chihuahuas were bred both for eating and for warmth. In other words, the dogs shake a lot because of their high blood temperature which was bred into them so they were good to cuddle with on cold nights. In the beds of the people who would eat them.
  • This occurs in some areas of China. There's even a standard formula for what type of dogs are good eating — yellow and black ones.
  • Koreans are also stereotyped for eating dog meat, particularly in the dish bosintang. While it is culturally acceptable, they distinguish between companion dogs and food dogs (which are either caught wild or kennel-raised like cattle). Even then, few Koreans have a preference for it.
    • On a non-stereotypical note, refugees that had defected from North Korea claimed that this trope was played very straight in the famine that struck in the 1990s.
  • Governments in both Beijing in 2008 and Seoul in 1988 banned the sale of dog meat at local restaurants for the duration of the Olympics. While eating dog is normal in those countries, it was apparently deemed easier to just change local menus for a few days rather than deal with foreigners being horrified that they might accidentally eat schnauzer.
    • That's probably because very few restaurants would even have dog in stock, as dog is the Chinese equivalent to chicken pot pie, yankee boiled dinner, chicken kneidel soup, shepherd's pie, and beef stew and both countries instituted the rules for the summer Olympics.
    • However, in Korea, dog meat would be traditionally eaten in the summer, so it could have been an issue in 1988. However, as noted in the other wiki, some restaurants served it anyway.
    • Ironically, several athletes from different countries stated that they were disappointed in this, as they had wanted to sample a dish of dog and see what the big deal was.
    • By the time of the 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup, the Korean government decided to try a different tack and encouraged foreigners to try dog stew for themselves, framing it as a cultural experience. Many noted that it was actually a pleasurable experience once they got over what they were eating.
  • The Swiss are unique among Europeans in that dog meat is a part of their local cuisine, eaten in the form of sausages. They also use dog fat as a salve.
  • Just about any society using sled dogs, and most of the polar expeditions that took them (for both man and dog food), the pros knew not to eat the liversnote .
  • Heck, just about any non-agrarian society that keeps pets uses them for food when the hunters come back empty-handed.
  • The British found quite a fondness for "roof rabbit" (that is, cat) during the Second World War.
  • The Mandan Tribe used dogs as a pack animal and hunting companion as well as a pet. They were sacred to the Mandan as well as valuable. They would only eat them as a religious rite and was rarely done due to their value. Europeans learning from George Catlin's paintings and informational tours were disgusted.
  • The ancient Hawaiians domesticated and ate dogs. One story from Obake Files featured a group of people transporting a delicious baked dog over the mountains, possibly near Honolulu. A mysterious voice asked "Where are they taking you?" The baked dog answered "Wherever they take me!" The group reversed course, minus one baked dog.
  • Because of lack of provisions, the Lewis and Clark expedition had to be pretty... creative when traveling the Louisiana Purchase Territory. It was mentioned that they found dogs to be particularly tasty, something which one Native American tribe in the Pacific Northwest apparently found appalling. Somewhat ironically, the crew had a pet Newfoundland that they kept with them, though there was never speculation to eat it.
  • In the Stephen Ambrose book Undaunted Courage the author notes they picked up the habit from plains Indians they met early in their journey. After months of living on grubs and tubers in the mountains, they relished the thought of having some dog. Of course, when they got to the Pacific Northwest, they were buying dogs to eat from tribes that were offering to share salmon with them — the natives found this behavior disgusting.
  • This article discusses research arguing that the original motivation for domesticating dogs was to have a good meal waiting in the future.
  • Many of the Plains Indian tribes considered dog a delicacy only to be eaten on special occasions. You could get buffalo every day and then some, but dog is hard to come by.
  • The Antarctic explorers that attempted to transverse the continent with Ernest Shackleton had to eat their dogs after losing their ship. Some of them even insisted on knowing which dogs they were eating.
    • Amundsen (who was the first to reach the South Pole) did this not as an emergency measure but as a deliberate strategy.
    • Robert F. Scott, who got to the pole shortly after Amundsen, used this as part of his plan. The other parts (snowmobiles and horses) didn't work so well for him... the snowmobiles were somewhat unreliable in the cold and required fuel that (unlike food for the dogs and horses) couldn't also serve as emergency rations for the humans, and the horses he used were purchased by a dog expert who didn't know anything about horses so he didn't have as much success with them as Shackleton had.
  • A satirical proposal to eat dogs.
  • During Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, some of the animals in the Kuwait Zoological Park were stolen, ending up as field rations for Iraqi troops.
    • At the time of the Boxer Rebellion, the rare Pere David's Deer was already extinct in the wild in China. Only one herd existed within the gardens of the Forbidden City, and it was completely slaughtered and eaten as another of the excesses committed by the foreign occupying troops in 1900. Fortunately, some few individuals had been shipped to Britain years earlier and made into a healthy population that was used to reintroduce the species in China in the 1980s.
    • Most of the animals in the Paris zoo were also butchered and eaten during the siege of 1870-1871. Primates were excepted because some people considered that eating them was dangerously close to cannibalism.
  • After the captain died, the Spanish soldiers at Baler in the Philippines (who continued to fight for a year after the Spanish-American War was over, believing that news about the Spanish defeat were lies) took great delight in eating their late leader's obnoxious pet dog.
  • Done ceremonially in parts of Benin as a coming-of-age rite. The courage of the sacrificed dog is said to pass into the boys who eat its flesh, so they'll face their circumcision bravely.
  • The Batak tribe of Indonesia is known for having dog-based menu in their cuisine. The majority of Batak are not Muslims, and thus they don't forbid themselves from enjoying dog, or pork, or even cake made of congealed blood. What this means is that if dog-loving foreigners are looking for food stalls that serve pork, they better make sure that the establishment doesn't also serve dog meat. Watch out for eateries that states they serve "B1", it's an euphemism for "dog."note 
  • Notoriously, done by Barack Obama when living in Indonesia as a child. (His stepfather insisted that he try various sorts of exotic foods. Snake and grasshopper were also on the menu.)note 
  • During the Revolutionary War, the winters drove the Americans to the breaking point. They ran out of food and had to eat dogs. When they ran out of dogs, they ate the leather on their shoes. When they ran out of shoes, they dug up dead bodies and ate them.
  • It's not unheard of for young farm kids to develop an attachment to certain animals on the farm, only to learn the hard way that livestock are not pets.
  • A Japanese school hosts a "Life Education" course, in which the students are told to raise chickens from birth and eat them towards the end in order to learn the importance of life by witnessing the process of livestock being raised and eaten, and becoming the nutrient for humans.
  • There's some evidence that at least one of the original times that dogs were domesticated was to serve as a food source that would willingly follow humans around and could survive on table scraps, with the use as a hunting companion and guard animal coming later.
  • It's said that pirates were never seldom seen with a parrot on their shoulders because they were often stolen from raided ships, and sold off like anything else that could be fenced, and because if provisions ever ran short during a voyage at sea, parrots would provide an easy way to stave off starvation.
  • During China’s Three Kingdoms era, when the general Xiahou Ba decided to defect from Wei to Shu, he got lost during his trip, and ended up eating his horse in order to keep himself from starving.
  • It's slowly being phased out in cities in Vietnam (due to increases in living standards and the number of people being able to afford domestic animals as pets rather than food sources), but there are still restaurants devoted to dog meat and cat meat. (Do not order "little tiger" if you're a cat lover.) At its heyday, there was an entire stretch of street in Hanoi lined with dog meat restaurants. "Should dog meat be allowed?" is a popular debate topic to be thrashed out in the media and classrooms. Pet owners have to be vigilant against thieves who would steal their animals and sell them to said restaurants.
  • Horse meat is a common food in parts of the world; while being socially disfavored or illegal in others. This leads to situations such as horse meat being smuggled across the border between Quebec, where it is sold, and the United States, where it is not legal to sell - although it is legal to eat.


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