Face and neck eaten by German shepherd

I colorized the original black and white image. Rounded, regular wound margins caused by a German shepherd postmortem. Note the two punctured wounds on the intact skin in the immediate vicinity to the actual wound margins originating from the canine teeth of the dog.

A broad range of carnivores can be involved in the postmortem destruction of corpses located in open spaces or indoors (e.g., wild animals such as foxes and big cats or domestic animals such as dogs and cats). The wound margins caused by carnivores often appear more regular than those caused by rodents and V-shaped or rhomboid punctured wounds are often seen on the intact skin in the immediate vicinity to the actual wound margins. Such stab wound-like defects represent canine tooth marks of carnivores’ origin. An additional criterion for animal depredation by carnivores is the presence of claw-induced linear scratch-type abrasions in the vicinity of the damaged skin areas.

In cases with postmortem animal activity, the psychological state of the animal is a possible reason for its behavior. One possible explanation for such behavior is that a pet will try to help an unconscious owner first by licking or nudging, but when this fails to produce any results the behavior of the animal can become more frantic and in a state of panic can lead to biting. The motive is not to attack the owner but is a kind of ‘‘displacement’’ behavior motivated by confusion and fear. The fact that the efforts of the animal will obviously be fruitless explains why this can easily escalate and culminate in excessive mutilation.