So there is a known problem where 300 dogs have been killed here an nothing has been done about it?
Have you heard of a net?
33
Hundreds of dogs jumping off the bridge.
Why no fence?
12
Smell of small animals below, paranormal activity - whatever the cause, I love my dogs too much to take a chance. I'd keep them away from this area. Period.
23
I don't know exactly why dogs feel the need to jump off this bridge, but I do know that I wouldn't let my dog walk off-leash over the bridge, given the history!
24
Dog walkers should get a flexible leash and turn a doggie suicide into canine bungee-jumping. Problem solved!
14
Was this bridge built by cats?
126
for crying out loud, can we not use the words "research" and "ghost"in the same sentence. dogs don't see something we don't but they hear plenty of things we do not. there may be a super- or infra- sonic phenomenon at the bridge inducing strange canine behavior. why did these people limit themselves to only the most banal and the most ridiculous explanations?
34
No mystery, just a dangerous place for animals, who fall from the sloped ledge.
Go to a dog park instead.
13
The law of averages tells us that for any bridge, 3 dogs will jump off for every 142 that cross without incident. You can look it up. That's what's happening here.
@Civres, bogus figures are not substantiated by "you can look it up." Try making up some authority next time.
25
Would it be too much to put up a sign saying: Warning: Many dogs have suddenly jump off this bridge and some have died? I guess a fence would spoil the beauty.
15
There’s a bridge in central Oregon where enough dogs have leapt to their deaths that there’s a sign warning dog owners about it. I’m surprised dog experts haven’t figured this one out yet.
13
@Jim
I live in Oregon; where is this bridge?
3
The Crooked river Railroad Bridge. It’s a 460-foot span, 320 feet above the river.
12
'There is more to heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy'
17
What a wonderful story.
And that one lucky photo of sunshine and blue skies.
I lived in Scotland for 3 years in Aberdeen - not a place I would recommend.
But rest of Scotland is - as Brits say - brilliant.
I liked the comment from Mr. Richard of Scotland below about dogs exhibiting strange behavior - learned from their masters.
7
Has anyone read Timbuktu? Dogs are simply unable to commit suicide. When their lives are so full of despair they have another way out.
3
This happened to my dad's dog years ago (in the US). The dog loved jumping over fences, and he died from this jump. It's clear that these dogs don't know they're on a bridge. From the photos, it seems even as the dogs are approaching the bridge, they cannot see down below from their vantage point. Why not cut away some brush or do something so that the dogs can see for themselves how high up they are.
19
Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness was right!
'L’Appel du Vide' or call of the void even works for dogs.
5
I think it is Brexit.
21
I think it is Brexit that is causing it.
7
Several commenters suggested checking for sounds outside the range of human hearing.
In looking at photos of the bridge online, I see what appear to be drain spouts protruding from the sides of the bridge. Those could be acting like whistles. Unfortunately, it is not possible to judge the wind speed from the photos.
12
I grew up surrounded by ophthalmologist in research and development. The issue has everything to do with the way dogs "see." Essentially, the dogs cannot discern between the grass, the ledge in front of them and the distance to the tree line. To a Dog the world is a varying shade of green. And they cannot judge distance, hence a dogs heightened sense of hearing and smell sensitivity.
23
Since almost 53 percent of Scots are Christians we can assume they believe in God. Why would it be even remotely mysterious to anyone that they also believe in ghosts and spirits as well? What’s the difference?
5
@walt amses
Exactly. I was going to post something similar. If you can believe in a magical man in the sky, why not a spirit that lures dogs to their death?
11
A passing thought, which may or may not have any validity. It is possible that wind passing under or around the bridge makes a sound in some frequency that we can't hear, but dogs can?
There is such thing as a dog whistle. I had it once. I bought it to summon my dog, but stopped using it when I realized I was summoning every dog in the vicinity.
15
"... the smells wafting through the air probably enticed the dogs to jump."
If the dogs were influenced by "smells", then obvious experiments would be to see how dogs behave while walking *below* the bridge and when exposed to air samples collected from the bridge.
The solution for this is simple: leash your dog. I love walking my dogs off-lead, too, but I would never walk them unleashed in a place where they might come to harm. If I’m near a cliff, they’re on a lead. I wouldn’t walk over a bridge with an unleashed dog. Why would anyone?
People make up sentimental or mystical stories to make themselves feel less guilty about mistreating or mismanaging their pets.
When I was a kid my family often repeated two stories about family pets who had killed themselves from grief. The first was a dog (an inappropriately high-energy breed and an intact male that was untrained and underexercised) that had knocked down a child, and so was rehomed. The dog was said to be so sad that he hung himself. What really happened was the new owner had tied him out near a wall, and when he jumped over it — still tied up — he hung from the rope and strangled to death. Horrible way to go. The other story was a dog who was said to have leapt to his death off of a bridge. Again, this was, in fact, an intact dog that had been left to roam unsupervised, and had been left behind when the family moved away.
It’s up to the owners to manage their dogs properly. Forget the stories and take responsibility for your decisions.
27
"... the smells wafting through the air probably enticed the dogs to jump."
If the dogs were influenced by "smells", then obvious experiments would be to see how dogs behave while walking *below* the bridge and to air samples collected from the bridge.
2
Can we just agree on one thing?
Scotland is beautiful, and building a protective fence would make the old stone bridge ugly.
Ergo: Leash the dogs.
36
Nice writing, Ceylan. Its actually interesting to read such stories. I've grown up listening to plenty of ghost/supernatural stories myself from senior citizens over the years & their experiences. I have witnessed some incidents which are hard to explain in scientific or practical terms as well, mind says something while conscience doesn't agree.
1
I worked with a man whose wife was convinced their cat committed suicide. She says she watched the cat sitting on their front lawn, next to the curb. They lived on a quiet street with little traffic. The wife says the cat sat there for a long time looking left and right and then grew very still. A car approached from the left and at the precise moment for impact the cat ran into the street and got hit and died.
I never forgot the story. For what it's worth the wife was a well-known journalist.
10
It sounds to me like a very British thing to do - look at Brexit: lemmings rushing towards the sea. Maybe the British Royals haunt the Bridge, waiting to overthrow Parliament as, according to archaic laws and precedents, they still have the power to do...
Dogs after all instinctively protect their owners.
2
I'm surprised that there is no mention of other potential biological causes. Couldn't there be some kind of moss, diseased plant, mold or tree pollen unique to the area that acts as a temporary poison to dogs? Like catnip on steroids?
1
Never underestimate the nose of a dog.
7
Everything is Bad in the World: Dog Suicide Edition.
6
Fascinating article and very enjoyable....thanks!
3
Perhaps the dogs know something mere humans do not. Humans have not been great stewards of this planet. I write this as an animal lover/vegan.
5
I smell collusion. Probably, the Russians are behind it all. Let’s look into it....
1
my border collie and wiener dog both mind very well off leash with voice control in most situations, crowds other dogs cats livestock are fine. they totally go nuts if a skunk,raccoon is detected likely the same with marten and mink and blunder into unaware danger. The solution is to lead the dog on leash to the edge a few times so they know is its there. Dogs seem to instinctively avoid falls.
3
Having had many dogs, I can tell you that the scent of a varmint does not cause the suicidal behavior described in the article. There may be another explanation that is not supernatural in nature but this one by the good pastor does not smell right.
5
Wandering around in the south of France years ago, we came upon a stone megalithic, called a menhir. There was a large spring nearby, and a giant ancient chestnut tree. It felt so unusual I believe it was a "thin place".
12
Some dogs simply find that life is too “ruff” to carry on.
7
Put up stout wire fencing that the dogs can't get through. Keep your dog on a leash. Stop believing in ghosts and do something constructive to save the dogs.
4
Stout wire fencing?
Can we save that for ugly places?
6
Given the frequency of occurrences over the years, why hasn’t the local governing body tried to build a fence or some sort of structure to prevent dogs or any other living creature from jumping over??
Or, at least, can this article encourage that to happen? Anyone know whom to contact related to this article to encourage that?
2
@Jennifer Eden
The local governing "body" is probably comprised of cat owners.
11
It seems unkind to call it a dog “suicide” bridge as if the dogs were to blame by willfully choosing to end their own lives when it appears more to be a dog “murder” bridge created by unwitting humans.
It seems clear that the design of the bridge tricks unfortunate dogs into thinking that the bridge wall is an ordinary flat wall and that the other side is no lower than the surface of the bridge when it is in fact a deep chasm.
Anyone who has walked a dog in the country knows how dogs love to leap on and over low walls, fallen logs, and the like to have a look around. A good many walls have nice flat tops, so how can a dog be expected to know that the Overtoun Bridge has a sloping wall that will slide the dog off the edge?
Also, a dog’s fine sense of smell means that dogs not only smell the living wild critters in the gorge but also the scent from dead animals. If dogs fall off the wall, then foxes and mink may do so, too. So dogs may freeze or act oddly because they are catching the scent of a dead fox that fell the previous night or from a dog that fell off the bridge a week or so ago.
The odd thing is that humans seem to prefer titillating themselves with the idea of mysterious ghosts and of dogs wishing to kill themselves rather than putting up a wire guardrail or a sign reminding people to leash their pets due to the dangerous design of the wall!
15
Hey, dogs all over the world jump off stuff all the time. The only difference is that here it's more likely to be fatal. But believing in ghosts is more fun, and better for tourism... and being ambiguous about it is better for NYT readership.
4
How about a net under the railing to catch them?? Like the zoo uses for items people drop? I mean how many beloved pets must make way for a safety precaution?? Human error, maybe but thats why we have safety measures isnt it???
7
maybe it's the real rainbow bridge, and dogs are going to be with past owners
2
Having lived over there with my springer spaniel, I can say that beneath such bridges salmon can run upstream in spawning season. It might be interesting to know if there's a correlation to time of year, because some dogs may be able to sense/smell the salmon leaping.
5
Strikingly similar thing happened to an otherwise sane and healthy dog at a bridge over a gorge-like spillway at one end of Lake Anza in Berkeley.
2
Use of the word “pagan” to describe Celts is insulting. They weren’t pagan and the word is a pejorative promoted by Christians and the Catholic Church
6
@DSD
Being called a pagan is not an insult if one understands it as polytheism.
8
This story is for the dogs! Love the writer's name!
1
I'm intrigued by this opening up further thought on animals and the supernatural. I always joked that my dog could see ghosts from her blind eye, one she's had since we got her as a puppy, because she used to look directly into a space no one was standing and then rocket into someone's arms and shiver for thirty minutes or more. I don't think I believe in the supernatural but she's taken to barking at the mudroom at 8pm sharp these past few months for fifteen minutes or so and then moving on with her life.
I think I'm going to look up that book mentioned and check it out. Thin places and animals and people feeling, apparently, much less than then our dogs do.
Also makes me curious if anyone's brought a cat to the bridge to see what happens, if cats care or not.
@Jessica Recently went blind in my left eye. Normal viewing I see nothing. But coming from a computer screen or brightly lit area into darkness I can see what appears to be TV test patterns, heiroglyphics, or bar code type images and variations rising slowly higher as I try to centralize focus on them. Then it6 fades back to nothing. Strange. Like walking out of a coded world.
7
The vibrations under the bridge may scare dogs into jumping to get off of it. My dog is terrified to walk on anything that has air instead of land underneath it. Even when confronted with the prospect of walking over a manhole cover, she will dive out-of-the-way so that she doesn't come anywhere near it.
7
If only dogs could talk!
1
It’s obvious from the pictures that you can’t tell from looking that there is a fifty foot drop under the bridge. The drop is sudden and imperceptible, more so to a dog at ground level giving chase. It’s an optical illusion. Again, this seems obvious.
4
I tend toward this explanation, as it seemed that the dog I mentioned above was surprised that it was falling through the air. I think it thought it was jumping into the lake, not down into a mini-gorge forming the spillway (like a waterfall). Still, it seems odd that so many dogs would become so disoriented by a possible optical illusion, especially since dogs have much better sense of hearing and smell than they do vision, and they also have whiskers to help them sense spatial
stuff. Maybe there is some other type of illusion, or set of illusions, that confuse the dogs, perhaps that happen only under certain environmental conditions and/or with certain size or type of dog or dog with undetected (by us) sense of smell?
Aside from the curiosity factor, it does seem worthy of study, if only in order for engineers and landscape architects to avoid creating such unsafe conditions in the future.
6
With apologies to R. Burns and others.
THE BALLAD OF OVERTOUN BRIDGE
In Dumbarton there is a bridge.
It spans dark Overtoun Burn.
It’s been the death of many a poor dog.
I know. My Lassie is one.
Six hundred dogs have leapt it o’er,
and fifty have ne’er returned.
No one knows why they howl so there,
then jump clear toward the Burn.
Some say they smell the marten and mink,
so frenzied chase them down.
While others say they are bewitched,
thus leap out toward the Burn.
What is the truth? What is the cause?
Will the answer ever be learned?
It’s been the death of many a poor dog.
I know. My Lassie is one.
In Dumbarton there is a bridge.
It spans dark Overtoun Burn.
It’s been the death of many a poor dog.
I know. My Lassie is one.
34
I am guessing that many, as in my own case, are reading about this phenomenon for the first time. If the near past is any indication, soon there will be movies that try to link it to some supernatural occurrences. Watch for commercials for "Lost II". I assure you, you will not be disappointed. It will be as stupid as "Lost I."
Why don't they put some type of fence on the bridge to keep dogs from falling, since it is clearly an issue. May not be pretty, but better safe than sorry...
3
"What's ahead, Overtoun Bridge?"
"Roger, Rover"
"Then leash me up, Scotty"
4
Maybe it's a sound rather than a smell. There could be a sound, made and amplified by the structure, that attracts dogs, a whistle inaudible to humans, but heard by dogs. Border Collies are particularly alert to their masters' signals.
6
My dog loves to jump on top of a 4 foot stone wall on a bridge that is covered by an overpass. The top of the wall is wide and flat so she is fine, but if it were sloped I could see her running into trouble.
She is a hunter, and she is very curious about her environment.
1
It could be this seemingly logical explanation about scents and other scientifically normal occurrences....
OR it could be this supernatural terrifying thing that gets more views and social media conversation!
1
"Mr. Hill, a pastor from Texas who runs a local center for women in crisis" aka no real healthcare providings or support options counseling, just exploiting vulnerable people to buy into evangelical nonsense. Apparently, it's effective enough to scam people to the point where you can invade their community and live in a robber baron's cushy mansion while doing so.
And if you think I'm just projecting, here's a quote from a Guardian article on the same topic: "Pastor Bob, 47, of the Florida-based organisation Globe Missionary Evangelism, has lived and worked in the area for six years. In February he won the lease for Overtoun from West Dunbartonshire council, beating a proposal to set up a training centre for childcare nurses."
His organization's mission statement is even to minister to, "unreached people who are uniquely harvestable."
13
Seen this before. The spirit of a ghost squirrel runs up and down the bridge taunting dogs with its chatter.
2
Don't they have any laws in Scotland about cruelty to animals?
Anyone who takes their dog on this bridge after its record of killing (for whatever reason) hundreds of innocent dogs should be heavily fined or even imprisoned, and not allowed to own dogs.
3
This is a symptom of the loss of belief in the rational viz. anti-vaxers, Trump voters, Brexit, global warming is a hoax.
1
Why don't they add some fencing to the sides of the bridge? How hard is that?
4
Elementary, Watson. The dogs jump hoping for reincarnation as cats to get another 9 lives.
2
I wonder about electromagnetic frequencies that drive the dogs crazy. Is there a smart meter under the bridge?
2
sure, ghosts.
OR
humans with zero control of their dogs.
4
I've heard of dogs jumping off bridges for no reason here in America.
Whatever the reason, that bridge needs to be heightened, or have a fence installed alongside it, to make jumping over by dogs impossible. What an awful story.
Perhaps the idea of thin places appeals to us for its poetry, for assuring us that there's more to existence than facts. Gerard Manley Hopkins's beloved sonnet "Pied Beauty" praises his Christian God for "All things counter, original, spare, strange". The weird may not be comforting, but it is attractive. Perhaps there is an incorporeal pied piper lurking in the gorge below the bridge, playing an invisible dog whistle.
129
@c and the idea of a "thin" place can extend to a whole country, even. I remember passing over Ireland on a trans-Atlantic flight, and being taken in by the rich shimmering greenness of the isle, wondering what secrets and unseen elements lay beneath as we flew over.
20
@Fred as a US expat who's lived in the UK for a dozen years, I have to say that encountering lots of really old stuff never gets old :')
21
Thank goodness someone remembers Gerard Manley Hopkins. Used to read him with my students.
34
Whatever the root cause that possesses some dogs to leap off, it is somewhat refreshing to read a story that makes one think for a moment as a respite from the Mueller news and now an attempt to hatchet health care. Albeit at the expense of some unleashed dogs.
292
I lived in Scotland as a child and was amazed by it all,not least of which were the thin places in our town. Ours featured an Elven Glen, that everyone, especially adults, knew not to play around in. They would warn you about it anytime you were near. I often wondered if the town were hiding something in there, but upon examination, it was a beautiful little place, with a tremendously heavy bad vibe. Scotland is magical, does have ghosts and special places.
309
@Suzanne I’m no hard and fast believer in the supernatural, per se, but having traveled extensively, I can attest to having experienced places that indeed had a “heavy bad vibe” for no discernible reason. I also remember one of my dogs who absolutely refused to walk down a particular street in our neighborhood, every time. It looked no different than any other in our neighborhood, but he was NOT to be swayed. We regularly override our gut feelings about places and situations, demanding logic prevail. Dogs, not so much.
172
@Suzanne
I was hoping you we going to say, upon further investigation it was revealed that is the secret place adults go when they need a break from their kids.
53
I learned about Overtoun House when visiting my aunt who lived just off Overtoun Road. Never heard about the dogs, but do recall occasional foxes trotting across a tree-shaded road or through the neighbouring park at twilight, and in early morning.
Should point out that the area is not in northern Scotland (as photo caption says on front page) but smack in central Scotland. Thanks for bringing back happy memories of visits with my Aunt Flora in Dalmuir, Clydebank.
Love the story.
10
We love dogs more than nature it seems. How about we do more to protect nature instead of fretting over the fate of a domesticated pets?
4
@Andrew Macdonald
Dogs ARE a part of Nature, not separate from it. Personally, I view dogs as I do the natural world; sacred.
How is nature being harmed in the instances in which dogs jump from a man-made bridge?
I wonder why precautions have not been taken to protect against this disturbing phenomenon? The installation of a safety screen would certainly help avert dogs' impulses, whatever the impetus may be.
4
Putting a leash on your dog would cost less than netting and wouldn't make the bridge ugly.
5
There's a high mountain valley in Colorado that's always haunted me. I think it's a thin place too.
It's lush and beautiful in summer. Wild berries grow and hummingbirds flash in the light.
But at the end of the valley is dark place under the mountain and the wind whistles.
11
No offense Scots, but this feels a bit like the storms-are-evidence-of-God's-anger theory. We can't explain something, therefore it's got to be supernatural. It's baffling that people still turn to spiritual theories when actions can't immediately be explained. Be patient, let science and intelligence solve the phenomenon and in the meantime, keep your dogs on leashes.
Also, there was a lot of research issued last fall indicating that dogs are not as intelligent as we give them credit for. Maybe something to read up on.
7
I can't help but wonder at the report that 300 dogs had made that 50-foot plunge but about 250 survived. If those numbers are proximate, my curiosity struggles with the possibilities, probabilities. and plausibility of either.
Perhaps it is a "thin place" for some, but a "dense place" for others.
2
@Kirk Bready A place of thin evidence.
1
I love this. It's a great display of the human need to be certain and explain things. Many of the respondents seem absolutely sure of their explanations: it's the scent of small mammals, it's high pitched sounds, it's statistically not unusual, it's ghosts.
Personally, I just love that it's a mystery - so much fun. But I'd definitely leash my dog there.
49
I and another human once took a dog up on to the roof of a small old stone building in a city park. The walls around the roof were very much like the bridge in this story, which is to say, a dog can't see over it to accurately judge how broad the top of the wall is, but for some dogs it's a very easy jump to get on it. Once we came up on the roof, the dog just went immediately over the side! We were shocked; my companion, screamed the dog's name and raced down to see if he was okay. He was.
We tried to analyze his behavior. We concluded that, from his vantage point, the wall looked like something he could get up on and stand. However, getting up on it took just a little too much momentum to allow him to stop his forward movement once he got up there. And over he went.
35
@juanitasherpa2
This is what I immediately surmised apon looking at the picture. I'm so smart! But, during my formative years of early rapid neural development, my best, and really only, playmate was a border collie.
Dogs have height limitations.
7
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet)
I totally buy the ghost theory.
32
@Susan An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.
— Marcello Truzzi
5
Pit Bulls got their name from an old English betting sport of putting rats in a pit and timing a dog as they took down the rats. Small furry things drive some dogs crazy. If the smell is strong, the dog might expect the prey is near and a good time is just a few paces away. Many a dog has regretted the impulse to chase a cat on the other side of the street.
13
Why not keep the dog on a leash?
16
@Betsy Smith
The article notes that dogs on leashes have been known to break free to make the leap. A harness would be a better idea. Also lessens the chance of strangulation if the dog pulls the leash out of the owners hand before going over.
2
It is a bunch of baloney, but I also wonder any pet owner does not have their dog on a leash when near it.
15
I have a friend who is as sane as can be but she can't drive over many bridges. She's not the only one who has that problem, which is called gephyrophobia. Some bridges affect her more powerfully than others, due to their design. Dogs and other animals may sometimes have a similar problem, but I pity birds with acrophobia.
13
Could a species of animal, unrelated to dogs but one they like to hunt (in some centuries old ingrained way) live near the bridge and the dogs are getting a whiff of them? Perhaps the dogs are following some odd kind of instinctive search for the source of a smell.
I hope someone tries a more scientific approach, just for the fun of it, to try to discover a pattern.
2
This might involve a doggie reaction to bridges in general. I've observed that my little dog has certain behaviors on bridges. She often pokes her head over small bridges (but doesn't try to jump; she's always leashed, because it's the law around here and because unleashed she's so fast we'd never catch her). On the large semi-famous Redding Sundial Bridge which we walk on frequently, she sometimes walks along without problems; but often digs her nails into the glass walkway and refuses to budge. As she is tiny I can drag her along but people start to laugh so I usually pick her up and carry her across.
3
I guess a book about ghosts also sells more copies than a boring rational explanation. Also, and I apologize if this duplicates other comments, but I couldn't help noticing how low the stone barrier (rail) on the sides of that bridge were. Even a smaller dog can easily climb up there. This, plus no learned caution of heights when growing up (few homes or gardens have steep, non-lethal drops to learn from), coupled with a poorer depth perception than, for example, cats, and no supernatural explanation is required. Still, a tragedy when it happens (I like dogs). As we all know, sometimes dogs look out for us, sometimes we have to look out for our dogs!
18
I wonder if the location has been checked for both very low- and very high-pitched sounds? Dogs can hear things well outside the range of human hearing, and there are locations on the earth with unexplained low-frequency humming noises.
The fact many dogs 'freeze up' near the bridge (assuming this is not just apocryphal) suggests a real physical phenomenon.
Perhaps someday, humans will have grown enough intellectually to not immediately embrace the supernatural as an explanation for puzzling facts. Truth is almost always stranger - and more interesting - than fiction.
62
Hmmmm....how about using a leash near the bridge? Seriously. What is wrong with people?
16
The real mysterious is why in spite of this pattern of dogs jumping off the bridge, whatever the cause, these negligent dog owners are not bothering to put their dog on a leash for 100 yards to prevent them becoming injured or dying.
17
@RR Did you finish the article? It explicitly states that some dogs have managed to get free from their leash. The woman in the story towards the end noted that she won't let the dog out of the car until he's on the leash.
4
@DM Did YOU finish the article? It explicitly states "[T]he Overtoun grounds remain a popular dog-walking area and many of the animals are off leash." The jumping dogs are not just those who escape leashes. We are supposed to be intellectually superior to dogs. Maybe we should use that intellect to see the need for leashes near this bridge.
5
My guess is that it’s some sort of acoustic event. The smell of mammals seems like an odd explanation. As mentioned why aren’t dogs jumping off of other bridges? Or are they and we just don’t hear about it?
Dogs respond to strange sounds by leaping up, barking, running to the door etc. Perhaps there is some unique configuration of the bridge, canyon, trees and rushing water below that combine to make a siren song for the dogs?
14
@Don L A dog's sense of smell is 400 or 4000 times more sensitive than any human's
1
Or maybe 40,000? Please decide, and cite your source.
3
Nice story but dogs alert to the smell of wild animals. And many dogs like to run after other animals. The explanation that the dogs intended to jump up on the wall at the edge of the bridge to scan the area for an animal they detected by smell, and then fell off, makes sense to me. Anyone who has had a dog inside an electric fence and then watched that dog forget all about the fence to chase a squirrel outside the boundary may note the similarity.
9
'the “White Lady of Overtoun,” also known as the grieving widow of John White, James’s son.'
Maybe she's sad because no one remembers her name, just that of her husband and her father-in-law.
(Looked her up: she was Grace Eliza White, née McClure, Baroness Overtoun.)
277
Great writing! Now I MUST visit Scotland!
21
My husband just read this article and suggested perhaps dogs are confusing the Overtoun Bridge with the Rainbow Bridge.
29
@Marge Keller Your husband wins for best/worst comment of the day.
21
@Marge Keller- hahahaha ~ I don't think so~! -- or maybe some people would be jumping off {ME!}
5
What a dog gone shame!
25
I have a ghost that lives in the water tank in the toilet of my powder room. My dog has yet to try to jump into the toilet so I’m very suspicious something else is the cause of this phenomenon
11
@Warren Powder room? Is that where you store gunpowder?
They should add ornate fencing to the sides of the bridge. That would stop the dogs from jumping over the side.
12
The article makes it sound like this bridge is unusual. But is it? To a dog, the bridge is just a wall with something interesting on the other side. Dogs jump over walls all the time. A few years back our dog, Sammie, jumped over the 4 foot back wall when she heard a new dog. This resulted in a 10 foot fall (she was not hurt). Let's say 10 dogs a day went across the Scotland bridge. That's ~250,000 dog-bridge-walks since 1950. If 500 dogs have jumped over the bridge wall in that time, that is a .2% jump rate. Is that statistically unusual? Someone could test it! Just set up a wall with something interesting on the other side and walk dogs by it. See how many jump. My hypothesis: the bridge is not an outlier. The only thing different is the dire consequence of jumping. So we can keep chasing ghosts, or if we love our dogs install nets on the bridge or use leashes.
56
One sunny afternoon, my sister's dog, half chow/german shepherd, sitting in the kitchen suddenly leapt up and tore back to the master bedroom, snarling and growling. My sister followed with no small amount of trepidation. Once in the bedroom, Cadbury stood, hairs up, fangs bared, snarling, barking and growling with savage intent, while looking up at one particular spot (from his position on the floor) into the bedroom mirror over the dresser. He never tried to jump up on the dresser - he stayed on the floor looking up and into the mirror. My sister peeked between the mirror and wall. Nothing. She put her ear against the wall. Nothing. This went on 6 or 7 minutes, with her gently speaking "What is it, Cadbury?" She was truly becoming frightened of him, he was so worked up. And he was ignoring her commands, which he never did before, all while looking up into the mirror. Finally, she laid her hands on him, began to stroke the hairs on his back into the right direction, and dragged him out of the bedroom with him looking back snarling and growling. With the bedroom door closed, she snapped on his leash and took him outside to the wall of the bedroom. Nothing. That evening her husband took down the mirror, moved the dresser, even climbed up on the roof. Nothing. There's no basement. They let him back in the bedroom. Nothing. Cadbury seemingly forgot all about it and It never happened again.
52
@Sylvia
Sounds like dog dementia
Sorry
4
@Sylvia Hmnn. From the dog's perspective, what could be seen in the mirror? Something on the street, or something reflected from the view out a window. Possibly Cadbury heard a noise that sent him to the master bedroom, and saw a reflection in the mirror.
This is just too funny. Point at something and dogs + small children look at your finger. In this case, the owner was looking at Cadbury's gaze, and not at what he was really seeing.
4
@Clara
Although Cadbury was only a few years old, that's the best explanation we could come up with. My sister thought at the time that he'd been sleeping, perhaps he had a bad dream and woke up to confront it. Who knows?!
10
I believe in ghosts to a certain extent. The idea of an 'energy' surrounding the bridge specifically strikes home. How many of us have been in a space that felt a certain way we couldn't exactly pinpoint?
Now, in relation to dogs - I have a particularly difficult one, who is very reactive to other dogs/creatures, to the point of being nearly uncontrollable if I'm unprepared for the reaction. And not even she would run after something she could not see.
11
My own dog did a similar thing in Prospect Park. Twice, in two different places. The first time she fell twenty feet (with a very surprised look on her face!) and landed in a deep pile of mud. She thought it was great fun.
So we avoided that spot but two or three years later she almost threw herself off a very tall bridge, right into the lake. My arm shot out reflexively and grabbed her before I really knew what was happening!
Both times the view over the parapet from her eye level was just lots of trees. She had no reason to imagine a drop. I think she was just having fun, as kids do, like I did whenever I saw a good climbing tree.
I most admit though, both times it struck me as kind of spooky.
198
@laurence
Thank goodness you had a strong grip on the leash and no harm came to your pup.
Many an occasion my arm was nearly dislocated from our chocolate lab spotting a squirrel before me and instantaneously bolting after him. Dogs have their own agenda while out on walks and never remember you are on the other end of the leash.
53
Dogs sense prey and rush towards it to their death, not knowing they are many feet above ground level. People are convinced the dogs are possessed by spirits.
Conclusion: dogs are smarter than people.
31
The bridge opened in the 1890s but the dog problem started in the 1950s. What changed?
21
@bloggersvilleusa
People became less intelligent.
14
I really miss Dr. Larry Eisenberg. He would have loved this, and produced a masterpiece.
89
I am not one for metaphysical explanations, but I am coming to appreciate the limits of science as a tool for knowing. Sometimes, we have to accept that we simply do not (yet?) have the answers
16
What more explanation does one need, unless certainty is the objective, and that can't be obtained. Probability suggests that the dogs jumped because of a chase response over the wall. They had no warning of a fall. It's the people who are inserting the spooky woo possibilities that are so unlikely. @H.L.
16
“Despite the macabre reputation, the Overtoun grounds remain a popular dog-walking area and many of the animals are off leash.”
Leashes . Simple solution. Leash up your darn dog.
44
Really the more salient question is why people who purport to love their dogs would walk across this bridge knowing its reputation.
33
Q. Why are dogs jumping off this bridge?
A. We don't know.
People: That's unsatisfying.
OK, let' say it's ghosts (which don't exist) Or dogs 'see' things humans can't. (despite the fact that human sight, on average, is better than a dog's).
People: Right! That's what we thought!
5
We lived in a house where the owner died of a heart attack sitting in his favorite chair in the living room. When we got our dog she would stand and stare at the exact spot and walk away. She did that her entire life. It kind of creeped me out.
I believe.
146
@Margo Channing
You are a far braver woman than I.
18
@Margo Channing--I do too now that a few things have happened: Whenever we speak of my late brother in law, on a particularly sad day, like the anniversary of his death, or on his birthday, a light has gone on that no one remembers turning on. I thought, well, possibly one of us did turn it on and we forgot. But just the other day we mentioned him, and one person in our den was sitting on one couch while I sat on the other, both of us far away from the lamp and when we spoke of Scott suddenly the table lamp went on again. This has never happened to me in 25 years in my house...it has also happened to friends, but when you have things like this actually occur, well, then, like you, I became a believer.
38
@Eva Lockhart I hope the afterlife involves more than eternally turning on a light at the mention of my name.
29
How cool is this?! A modern ghost story.
9
This story reads like the subject of a Stephen King novel. Strange for sure.
7
Where is Bobbie Burns when you need him?
A narrative poem called "The Dogs of Overtoun Bridge" -- in ballad stanzas, of course -- is in order.
22
@Joel Solonche Working on it...
There is a place I will not tread
Though my dog does love to run
Only to stop at the bridgehead
and stare towards the sun.
She pulls at her lead and whines a bit
though there's nothing but the sky
to lure her over the parapet
of Overtoun Bridge to die.
11
I am non-believer with a story to tel, l since house-sitting at a secluded mansion (oldest part dating from early 18th century) some years ago.
After ruling out every logical reason why a door leading to a windowless, insulated, attic room from an isolated, draft-free hallway, would repeatedly open itself (with a bang), my dismissal of supernatural causality began, reluctantly, to check itself. Gravity? No, the door was slanted to close; Pinched hinges, warpage, and the like? No, the door closed freely and neatly. The fifth time I got out of bed to close this door, I placed a heavy hall table solidly it. Barely got back in bed before the door opened itself yet again, having pushed the table to the middle of the hall--about wide enough for a person to walk through the doorway.
I had been told by the owners to use the master bedroom, just across the hall from the attic door. Seeing the table had been moved, I closed the door one last time. Then I decided to finish the night in a nearby guest room, which I used for the rest of the month. There were no further mysteries; the door stayed shut.
Some things are (effectively) true whether we believe them or not.
116
It’s air pressure. Ever been in a house where when you open a window a door slams shut or pops open? We often forget air is there because we can’t see it, but engineers model water and air with the same equations. Putting a table in front of the door is no different from putting a table on top of a hose. You can pull the trigger for just one second and it will push that table off.
11
@Allen
I'm also an unbeliever, but . . . I went up to Vermont, years ago, to help my boyfriend's parents move out of a charming and expensive farmhouse in the mountains. They'd bought it four months before, and had been told by the locals that Fred, the resident ghost, would be happy to have company.
Fred was a young WWII pilot, who had told his mother that if he died in the war, she should use his insurance money to buy this house. He died in a training accident, she bought the house . . . and something has lived there ever since. He was attentive and mischievous--lit fires on wood that had been laid in the fireplace, opened the basement door constantly (in spite of the hard rubber ball that my BF's parents kept jammed under the trigger lock), once filled the kitchen sink with water and floated a full cookie jar in it.
Final straw was when my BF's father saw 'something" standing in a corner, late at night, during a thunderstorm. Presumably Fred, it said, "I'm so afraid!" Owner replied gently that he was, too--and put the house up for sale.
The night I slept over, we couldn't keep the lamp in our bedroom turned off all night, finally had to unplug it. Basement door must have opened 20 times as we carried stuff to the moving van the next morning.
Bet Fred's there yet.
58
@Allen
I would have left after the first night, I had my own little tale to tell but certainly nothing like this. Nope I'd find my way to another hotel. You stayed a month? A brave soul to be sure.
27
I do love the concept of the “thin place”, and since I have Scottish DNA, I too will use this term for those natural moments and places like a sunrise, sunset or spiderweb with dew. But, as far as the bridge is concerned, you wouldn’t allow a toddler to jump on those slippery, slanting notches so why would you allow your pet?
41
@AnnaFarrar I’ve been present for multiple births (including, obviously, my own children) - births of strangers as well as family members. I always experience the birth of a child as a “thin place” including a sense of the atmosphere and lighting in the room being luminous. It lasts for moments immediately after the delivery as the child takes first breaths. Yeah, Scottish in name and heritage.
13
Well this article freaked me out. I'm sure it will resurface come October. In the meantime, if "people in Dumbarton are very superstitious" then why take a chance and walk one's dog over that dang bridge?
Whenever the waters of Lake Michigan would become extremely strong and the waves would come crashing well beyond the shoreline, rip tide warnings would go out on the radio and TV news stations. I NEVER would take our beloved chocolate lab anywhere near the lake on those days. So why would anyone walk their dog across the Overtoun Bridge?
A “dog suicide bridge"? I'm surprised someone hasn't commented that perhaps dogs are merely trying to get to the "Rainbow Bridge" to visit their pals.
To be honest, I really want to see this "mesmerizing spot where heaven and earth overlap" minus any dogs or cats. I can only imagine how cool that place is.
23
So, what happens when dogs are walked under the bridge — do they go nuts tracing trails left by minks and squirrels? If so, then that’s the answer. If not, then something else is encouraging dogs to jump, possibly something scent oriented that confuses the dog’s normal situational awareness, or perhaps a wind-driven ultrasonic tone.
43
I also wondered about a noise above human range.
14
@redward- yes, there's always a reason. whether we know it or not is immaterial. to dismiss it, because we can't pinpoint it with our limited senses is shortsighted & irrational ~~ we should be smarter than this!
5
The “teaser” line states that the bridge is in northern Scotland. Dumbarton is a 30 minute drive from Glasgow. It is more akin to Dallas TX than Fargo, ND as Scottish geography goes.
10
Years ago I was on a European tour and the tour bus stopped at this very tall bridge in Luxembourg. I looked over the stone wall below and the height of the bridge seemed at least 200 ft tall and the valley and the stream below were tiny. I idly thought to myself that this would be ideal place to commit suicide. Just after I had this thought, the tour guide told us this was the top spot were Europeans come to to commit suicide every year. I shivered in dread and horror.
175
@Sasha Love The allure is passing out before hitting bottom. Seems painless, but many do not. Once over that first step you can not change your mind. It is far too late. And all the king's horses and all the king's men...
18
And cats? Are they too smart to jump or do they simply land on their feet?
10
People don't walk their cats. So one would need to conduct an experiment. Better check the animal cruelty laws in Scotland first. @mark
4
Now, if we could just figure out what to do about our human species taking the leap.
Here's a start: get more help for the depressed and in the meantime make the bridgewalk fences higher to climb.
10
Obviously nobody knows the answer to this mystery.
I'm just placing a bet for funsies:
It's sound. It's sound resonating in dog skulls.
(Similar things happen to humans. Situations like this have been shown to produce "ghost-sensing" results in laboratory conditions.)
5
We put up nets around driving ranges, baseball fields, and zoos. If this danger is well-known, why hasn't someone put up a net around this bridge? Why are people allowing their dogs off leashes? Do people think it is funny or are they not thinking?
Human stupidity really is infinite.
45
Nets are ugly.
How about holding tight to the leashed dogs?
7
Why are the only people who ever "see" ghosts are those predisposed to believing in them in the first place? Never mind -- I already know the answer.
9
The simplest explanation is usually correct, and the simplest answer never involves supernatural or paranormal phenomena.
51
@Mark That's the plot of every episode of "Scooby Doo."
19
@Mark
But isn't the simplest answer always "it was God's will"?
5
@Mark
Can not resist. " the simplest answer never involves supernatural or paranormal phenomena".
Provide a simple explanation here,
By age five Jay had composed five symphonies. His fifth symphony, which was 190 pages and 1328 bars in length was professionally recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra for Sony Records. On a 60 Minutes program in 2006 Jay’s parents stated that Jay began to draw little cellos on paper at age two. Neither parent was particularly musically inclined, and there were never any musical instruments, including a cello, in the home. At age three Jay asked if he could have a cello of his own. The parents took him to a music store and to their astonishment Jay picked up a miniature cello and began to play it. He had never seen a real cello before that day. After that he began to draw miniature cellos and placed them on music lines. That was the beginning of his composing.
Jay says that the music just streams into his head at lightning speed, sometimes several symphonies running simultaneously. “My unconscious directs my conscious mind at a mile a minute,” he told the correspondent (Treffert' "Islands of Genius", pp.55-56).
It is trivial to find things that contradict the assumptions of the Religion of Science and it is essentially impossible to find followers of that religion acknowledging any of it. Faith has its handicaps.
3
For the ghostie lovers out there, try reading E.F. Benson's ghost stories. Benson is better known as the author of the hilarious Lucia series, but his tales of the supernatural are hair-raising.
Several of them concern "thin places."
I believe dogs sense things we do not. But then, their noses and ears are keener. Whether they see dead things, well, that would make a good movie.
59
@B.
Thanks, I'll try him.
There's also The Beckoning Fair One, by Oliver Onions.
4
@B. Thank you for the recommendation!
3
Since this is a well-known event, I’d like to ask a stupid question:
Why wouldn’t a dog owner keep their dog on a leash while in the area - or not take their dog there at all??
194
@Mandeep the answer lies somewhere between "why don't people get vaccinations?" and "why don't people wear seatbelts?"
80
@Mandeep
No true Scotsman would put a dog on a leash.
16
Och aye, they do at times. Dinna say they never do.
17
Next Tuesday is April 1, somebody put this in early.
43
Why would anyone walk a dog across this bridge, no matter what the reason for the jumpers?
20
"we believe in ghosts here because we’ve all seen or felt spirits up here.”
If my owner was that gullible I might leap off a bridge to escape too.
55
How sad. What about putting a low fence atop the wall?
19
Made my day! Whilst I don't remotely believe in ghosties, I really wish they existed. Wonder what they think about all those years?
9
My young Shiba Inu inexplicably jumped out of a window in our fifth floor apartment about seven years ago. It rained hard the night before and she landed, thank God, in a pile of mud and survived with minor injuries. So, the idea of dogs jumping from great heights is not unheard of. The vets told us they saw cases like this several times a year, usually with the dogs getting killed.
43
Research the many cases of people who have disappeared. Note how many of them vanished while searching for a runaway dog -- in many cases, a dog that bolted suddenly and apparently in response to having been called in some way that humans can't detect. Often, these involve cases in which the person was out on a country walk or a hike with their dog.
6
@Livie
Many people who have disappeared were searching for a runaway dog?? You have a vivid imagination.
7
@Kally In fact, I have a subpar imagination, it's just that I've taken the time to research things that most people aren't interested in.
10
@Livie
Hmmm. I've never heard that before. Maybe what you described only happens in Vermont.
2
Would it be expensive to install a safety net under the bridge?
32
@Quasar or doggy stairs.
1
@Quasar
I had a big black dog named Quasar. I tried to name the small brown dog I got Quark. But that didn't stick. He became Camus.
3
There’s a lucrative bungee-jumping business just waiting to happen here.
4
The answer seems obvious to me: a unique blend of ultrasonic acoustics that beckon the dogs to come hither. If you want to turn it into a mystery, call it the Siren of Overtoun. But it’s likely just a simple result of wind whipping through various elements in the gorge, and dogs don’t have the wherewithal to turn down the ‘invitation’.
Detecting it is simply a matter of bringing a broadband acoustic spectral analyzer to that bridge.
118
@Tony
This was my thought, too. It appeared that some parapets had drains (?) like gargoyles. They looked like protruding cannons. Before reading the article I wondered if the mouths of those drains would whistle when air came through them or past them.
16
@Tony
"Ultrasonic acoustics"? And if such an explanation were credible wouldn't such a wind-based phenomena be a relatively common occurrence (and thus known)?
Wouldn't it be readily apparent from people's use of dog whistles? Perhaps someone using such a whistle on one side of the street and inadvertently getting a dog on the opposite side of the street to blindly sprint across the road (and perhaps and get hit).
4
As a dog owner, I’ve had this nightmare. Maybe it’s a somber place because of all the heartbreak.
25
I live in another of the Celts 'thin places' - Balquhidder. Whilst it is a truly magical place to live, we have yet to see any signs of aberrant pet behaviour, beyond normal eccentricity (much of which is copied from the owners)
379
"hushed, lush and sometimes still"
Thank you for that fresh gust of poetry in the middle of an excellent piece of journalism.
537
Much better article than reading about Trump.
703
@OneSmallVoice
I don't necessarily disagree with your perspective, but I had to pause for a moment and ponder why an article about a "dog suicide bridge" is better than reading about Trump. Aside from that tragic aspect of the Overtoun Bridge, that "mesmerizing spot where heaven and earth overlap" sounds like the perfect temporary respite away from most negative and depressing news article.
Just wondering if Steve Ricks will include this site on any of his walking tours.
14
@OneSmallVoice What's the difference? Dogs blindly leaping into a chasm or Americans blindly following Trump into the abyss?
37
@Marge Keller Did you mean Rick Steves?
20
Interesting article! Overtoun House, which is on the grounds, was once a maternity hospital where I was born. Makes me want to revisit.
67
I stopped at Glencoe, where the Campbell battalion of Highlanders massacred the local McDonalds because their Chief had been latte in submitting to William of Orange. You can definitely feel something in the air there.
17
@Lefthalfbach
I agree with you about Glencoe but let us not forget it was the English who paid for it. We Scots believe in things like this. Nessie is a perfect example.
9
Sounds like an episode of "Sherlock". Where is Benedict Cumberbatch when we need him.
59
@learlc Love that episode, such a great show! A wonderful modern take on the "Hounds of the Baskervilles"
8
Problem solved: don't walk your dog over the bridge! Let me know if you need a Brexit solution.
480
@bsaums,
Well, let's have this Brexit solution of preventing London Bridge from falling down, and we can always read Orwell's 'England Your England' as we go forth into the darling buds of May.
13
In my life-long experience as a dog owner, I firmly believe they see things that we don't.
205
@Bella Wilfer
You mean like when they stare off somewhere with at least as far as you can nothing is there? Dogs like to play tricks on people. They have a dog sense of humor which makes it hard for us to pick up on. My dog would play tricks on me. Sometimes it could involve four levels of cause and effect. Once to get me get me to open a fresh box of large biscuits.
45
@JoeG My dog used to go to the sliding door to be let out. Of course I'd get up to let her out. Then she'd sidle over towards the kitchen: "as long as you're up, how about a treat?".
41
@Bella Wilfer Given my eyesight, it's usually bugs.
11
Last time this story ran I asked my son in law, a veterinarian, what he thought of it. He answered, "That's how people get rid of unwanted pets".
35
It's difficult to know what to think. Can the stories be trusted, first of all? I assume there have also been many "sightings" of the Loch Ness monster.
12
@Richard Waugaman: maybe the Scots are just unusually gullible about this sort of thing?
(I'm part Scottish on my dad's side, so I can say this, lol.)
If when one walks their dog it is on a leash this won’t happen. Be a responsible dog owner.
56
It's not a ghost. It's the sharp slope of the cut-outs in the bridge parapets (don't know what else to call them -- look at the last photo attached to this article and you'll see what I'm talking about). A dog jumping up onto one of these cut-outs because it catches a scent is going to slide right off. All of this would be vaguely amusing (except, of course, for the dead and injured dogs) but for all the unreason which is afflicting us in the age of Trump. Magical thinking nowadays is no joke. It's running (and ruining) the U.S. and Britain.
101
@Barry Schreibman
I am always impressed by the ability of NYT readers to tie any story, about any topic, to Trump. Well done.
150
@Barry Schreibman
I agree. In the photo, the woman in a blue top is standing next to one of the cut-outs. As can be seen, this is the lowest point of the bridge and, therefore, the place where dogs would jump up to investigate smells emanating from below the bridge.
26
@Barry Schreibman Thanks for the observation. The cut out in the parapet in front of the woman is mostly in shadow, but clearly we see the sharp slope downward. A dog jumping up on it has forward momentum and surely would fall to their death. A netting at these cut outs would save the errant dogs.
17
Can't help wondering why a protective barrier hasn't been placed on the bridge-?
19
@joanna Perhaps because it is not the USA and therefore the lawyers have not joined in yet.
37
@joanna Because it is an utterly charming architectural site that would be ruined with ugly modern barriers? When a leash could work, why make something ugly?
80
Renee, do you also find old electric chairs “charming”. My dog’s life is worth more than your idea of what is “charming”. I see nothing special about this stone structure, just because it’s old does not endow it with anything special.
1
There is a bridge in northern New Jersey on "Clinton Road" that goes over a stream. The stream under the bridge is supposedly haunted by the spirit of a young boy who drowned there. It is said that if you throw a coin off the bridge on a dark night, the boy will throw the coin back.
A search on Google or YouTube will reveal more about this.
The "smell of small mammals" explanation sounds like someone grasping at straws to find a non-supernatural explanation. If there were all those small mammals down there, the place would be home to a large colony of foxes, who would eliminate the small mammals in due time.
30
Finding myself on the road at Smugglers Notch in VT at 5am was my Thin Place... breathtaking
19
@RM
"grasping at straws to find a non-supernatural explanation"
This is the most deliciously ironic sentence I'll probably read all week.
Thanks!
97
@RM a fox is a small mammal
23