Would you abandon your best mate?

[Ben Nachie]

obviously yes.

Obvious how?

[taytay]

There are apparently those here that think my post was specifically about Mr who must not be named from somewhere or other. It isn't and wasn't! I referred to what had apparently happened to an individual and asked two very simple and straightforward questions that pretty much followed on from the example quoted. As a hopefully rational human being I was interested in what other hopefully rational human beings would do in a very restricted set of circumstances. If you can deal with that then fine.

For those however who cannot break the connection with Mr who must not be named can I refer you specifically to: http://tohatchacrow.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/of-mice-and-men-death-of-self-reliance.html and particularly the comments made by Scott Finnie of Action4Meg

If you're not interested in the follow up to Mr who must not be named then you can give it a miss.

[Sgurr]

Deleted

[StevenF]

obviously yes.

Obvious how?

I don't think that a dogs life has equal value when compared to a humans so I think the choice to abandon it would be easier (example, my dog's death would only affect me and the dog, whereas a human would affect his parents, children, friends, ... and no I will not go into the discussion "what if he didn't have any of those?) and I imagine the guilt afterwards would not be as big. To save a human life I would take bigger risks then to save a dogs life.

This all seems obvious to me because I don't accept the "my dogs are my children" theory. Partly from my own experience because I had a dog before I became a father and I would kill my own dog to feed my children if necessary and not the other way around . And I think (hope) this is true for almost all dog owners who have children.

If I look around then I think this sentiment is almost universal, except of course when someone leaves his dog on the hill to save his life.
Animals are forced to have horrible lives for the food industry, refugees are left to drown, but aren't we decent? Let's all publicly shame this poor guy who probably feels terrible already for not being able to save the dog he owned land oved for 10 years. Pfff

[Ben Nachie]

OK, but that's not necessarily obvious, that's all, especially given that in your answer 1 you stated that you would abandon a human under certain circumstances. Thank you for the clarification, I was curious that's all.

As for Mr. X, all that I have criticised him for is his apparent lack of appropriate navigational equipment.

[StevenF]

Oh, I wasn't targetting you with my last remark. Seems that in my defense of Mr. X I might have been too much on the offense

[monarchming]

As a lot of people have mentioned no one has the full facts on this story.
There does appear to be some conflicting views on this subject.
Also there seems to be different interpretations of this story depending where you read about it.
As a dog owner ( Angus the Cairn Terrier) I can’t imagine leaving him behind.
I climbed Conival last January with Angus with the intention of going to Ben More Assynt as well.
We stopped at the summit of Conival for a break but one look at Angus and I knew we would turn back. The weather was getting worse and it was very cold( he had his jacket in too!) so that made my mind up.
Yep and I agree sitting at home with the benefit of hindsight it was the correct decision.
My point being is if conditions were that bad ( as was stated) why didn’t Meg’s owner and his friend turn back?
Also if he loved that dog so much why did it take him till Friday to go back and look for Meg?
There are other anomalies to this story which I can’t figure out.
Ultimately this guy will have to live with his decision which I am sure will trouble his conscience for a long time.
He had to do what he thought was right at the time.
Personally speaking I would NEVER leave my dog but that’s my own personal choice.

[Robinho08]

They never turned back, they made it to the summit. Poor Meg was found less than 1km away from Taraphocain (NN019464) somewhere on the 150m contour line. So close but yet so far.

No map, no compass, no clue and inadequate gear. I suppose in hindsight it could have been two humans and a dog that perished.

[jupe1407]

Social Media is utterly horrendous when it comes to this sort of thing. Facebooks servers must have melted when the BBC shared the recent video of a couple of folk being airlifted off Bidean nam Bian. Some of the comments were from people who quite clearly should be kept away from society for the good of everyone: "Should have left them there to die!!!" etc. After initially trying to make reasonable points re MRTs, I got bored and had much more fun ripping the pish out of what seemed to be about 10 armchair Bear Grylls. It passed a fairly boring afternoon anyway.

I also don't see the need to name/shame the person involved. Starting this thread then getting overly defensive about it rather smacks of mischief-making.

As for the actual question, no for either human or pet. Although our only pet is a hamster so that wouldn't be a particularly challenging rescue tbh.

[Sgurr]

"Would you abandon your best mate?" Answer, yes, but it would be called "Going for help."

[BobMcBob]

The internet is awash with armchair pundits taking holier-than-thou attitudes to anything and everything. Facts and reasoned discussion simply get in the way. It must be something inherently awful in human nature that creates this state of affairs, you can't blame the technology for letting it out. (Note I'm not referring specifically to the OP here, but one has to question the motives of a person who goes around asking strangers for their opinions on a tragedy they had no part in).

Nobody knows the full facts except the guy and his dog. Leave the guy to think about his mistakes and mourn his dog, leave the dog to rest in peace, and try going outside and remembering that the opinions of people you don't know and will never meet on a subject they know very little about, don't matter a toss.

[taytay]

I’m pretty disappointed to find that I have to keep butting in on something that has nothing whatsoever to do with my original posting. So for the avoidance of doubt IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MR WOTSINAME AND HIS DOG! (Apologies for the shouting.) If you can accept that then that’s good and you don’t need to read any further. For others please read on.

STV, Scottish Sun, Daily Mail, Mirror, Daily Record. All of those published Mr Wotsisname correct name, place of assumed residence and dogs name on 19th January. They also named the mountain he was on. In addition they all carried his picture and a picture of his dog! Now I’m making an assumption here but I rather think that the circulation and readership of the above is somewhat in excess of the membership of this forum. It’s only an assumption though. I won’t bore you with the various online sites, blogs, Facebook et al as you can no doubt track these down yourselves.

What is clear therefore is that the guys full name and place of abode was known in the big wide world long before I happened to mention it on here. So I most certainly did not “out” him!

Let’s look now at what I said. My opening remark was “I only know here what I’ve read online.” An innocuous comment meaning I have no information other that what I have read. It doesn’t signify anything other than that.
My next sentence began with the word “apparently” A reasonable definition would be: “You use apparently to indicate that the information you are giving is something that you have heard, but you are not certain that it is true. “ So I’m not stating a known fact or facts. I then went on to paraphrase what I had read from various sites. You will clearly note that I did not criticise, flame or degenerate the guy in any way. I did not say that what I had read was true. I did add a short comment from presumably family that might have gone some way to explain the position.

I then went on to pose two questions which did not refer directly to Mr Whatever but were a follow on from the possible EXAMPLE mentioned by me. I.e. a little scene setting

I’ve walked, climbed, wandered, what have you in my own hills and those elsewhere for over thirty years. I’ve seen and done things that I’m not particularly proud of but on my way I’ve tried to do what little I could for my fellow human beings. And yes I like dogs & I’m sad when they aren’t given the treatment I think that they deserve. You don’t have to like dogs that’s just me.

So the two questions were aimed at the outdoor fraternity to see what they would say. The two questions were of no relevance to Mr Wotsisname. He was only there as a possible example of what might or might not have gone on.

Now if you’ve taken the trouble to read this far and have understood where I’m coming from then I’m satisfied. If you still don’t understand then I can’t help you.

End of sermon!

[Moriarty]

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MR WOTSINAME AND HIS DOG!

If that's the case then I fear your communication skills have not quite been up to the task of communicating your true message, rather than appearing to be a pursuit of the individual.

Rather than the Blairesque forensic analysis of your original posts to blame others for their misinterpretation (if that's what it was) of your post you could reflect a bit on where you went wrong (if you did).

[jupe1407]

I’m pretty disappointed to find that I have to keep butting in

I got about this far. Sorry.

[stirlingdavo]

try going outside and remembering that the opinions of people you don't know and will never meet on a subject they know very little about, don't matter a toss.

Nuff said!