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MD: My cat Teddy wakes me up every day by draping himself over my head, purring loudly as he blocks my airways. Or by attacking my feet. I think he at least likes me.

Tyler: Anyways, this got me thinking about being forever alone — except for Sal, who does in fact love me. But if I die alone in my apartment, and nobody comes to find me, would he … get hungry?

MD: I don’t doubt for a second that my cat would eat me if he had to. I recently asked some of my friends, who have met my cat, if they thought he would. And they didn’t doubt it for a second either. He is really cute, though.

Tyler: I’ve met your cat. He seemed nice enough. But anyway, there have been reports over the years of pets eating their owners. Not tons of them, but they are out there. And unfortunately a lot of them are kind of sad — like, stories about recluses who didn’t have anyone to come check on them. But to me, for some reason, it’s a funny trope. Like, my loving dog eating me is just fundamentally kind of humorous.

Photo by James Park for Postmedia

MD: I have no bone to pick with that. It would be hilarious if Sal, uh, managed to sal-vage something from your death. Could it actually happen, though?

Tyler: Terrible joke. The thing is, it’s a race against time. I talked with Stanley Coren, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia who studies dog psychology, and he was a good sport about answering my gross questions. “The evidence is that the dog would have to be exceedingly hungry” in order to eat you, Coren explained. He estimated it would be several days before the dog got hungry enough to even consider it.