The Choking Doberman is an urban legend that originated in the United States. The story

The Choking Doberman is an urban legend that originated in the United States. The story involves a protective pet found by its owner gagging on human fingers lodged in its throat. As the story unfolds, the dog's owner discovers an intruder whose hand is bleeding from the dog bite.

Jan Harold Brunvand, a folklorist and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah, wrote about this and other urban legends in his book The Choking Doberman and Other "New" Urban Legends published in 1984 by W.W. Norton and Company. He provided the reader with several varying accounts of the story. While the basic elements of the story remain the same in each version, the details, such as the number of fingers found, the breed of dog, and the condition of the intruder when discovered change slightly.

THE LEGEND
A woman goes out for the evening with friends. Upon her return, she is greeted by her pet Doberman choking in the hallway. Alarmed, she takes the pet to the veterinarian. The vet announces that he must perform a tracheotomy on the animal and he will call her when he has news. When the woman arrives home, the vet calls and tells her to leave the house at once. The dog was choking on three human fingers. The woman calls the police, who search the house. They discover the burglar, hiding in a closet, passed out from blood loss caused by having three fingers bitten off.

PRECURSORS
In his book Brunvard cites a fable about Llewellyn the Great and his loyal dog Gelert as the oldest possible influence on the story. In the original legend, Llewellyn leaves his young son at home with Gelert while on a hunting expedition. Upon Llewellyn's return, the dog greets him with a bloody face; thinking the animal has eaten his child, Llewellyn immediately draws his sword and kills Gelert. However, Llewellyn's son is soon found alive near the dead body of a wolf, revealing Gelert had actually saved the child from harm.

In her 1992 paper The Ambiguous Guardians, Adrienne Mayor cites the fifth century BC narrative The Omen of the Wolf as an earlier echo of both the Gelert fable and the urban legend as it is today. In this myth, the emperor Honorius's retinue was attacked by a pair of wolves. When the beasts were killed they were found to have a pair of human hands in their bellies. Their aggressive behavior—coupled with the awful last meal—were taken as a sinister sign and rumors lit a panic in Rome. The emperor's official propagandist, Claudian, attempted to counter the popular understanding of the sign with his poem The Gothic War.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choking_Doberman

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