Kangaroo vs. Dog: Why This Marsupial Might Try to Drown Your Beloved Canine?

Dogs may not be in a safe place around kangaroos. According to experts, there's a reason why these marsupials are inclined to attack our beloved canines.

Kangaroo Drowns a Dog

A video of a kangaroo trying to drown a dog in the water had gone viral. Many were surprised why the kangaroo did it, as the dog appeared harmless. Fortunately, the dog and its owner were both safe after the encounter.

Mick Moloney found his dog Hutchy missing while strolling along the Murray River in northwest Victoria, Australia. When he turned to face the river, he noticed a kangaroo standing with its arms underwater and its waist deep in the water.

The next thing he saw was his pet gasping up for air with water spilling out his mouth. The dog was screaming his head off, so Moloney waded through the water to face the kangaroo and help his dog.

The marsupial was gripping the dog from behind. He took a swing at the kangaroo, who retaliated by punching him back. Fortunately, it eventually let go and left them. Hutchy and Moloney both made it to the riverbank safely.

This strange encounter marked the most recent known fight between a domestic dog and a kangaroo, in which it seems the kangaroo is attempting to drown the dog.

In 2020, another video featured a little dog in Queensland's Brisbane River almost losing its life after colliding with a 1.5-meter-tall (5-foot) kangaroo, according to 7News Sydney. Additionally, in 2014, two staffies trapped a kangaroo in a dam in New South Wales, and the latter reiterated by attempting to drown them.

Several netizens reacted to the video shared on X, formerly Twitter, with one saying it was a "gangster kangaroo." Another claimed it's as easy as pie for kangaroos to beat dogs in the water by either drowning them or ripping them apart. So, if one sees such an encounter, one should help the canine instead of filming the incident.

"Once in the water the dog was as good as dead, fortunately, the owner intervened," another added.

@twitter|https://twitter.com/7NewsSydney/status/1217219853787881472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw@

Why Kangaroos Attack Dogs?

Kangaroos trying to attack or drown dogs is not something out of the ordinary. Kangaroos, for their part, do so because they see dogs as a threat.

According to Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University in Australia, dogs look like dingoes, their deadliest predators.

"This behavior is one way that kangaroos have learnt to survive attacks by dingoes, a native top predator they've coexisted with for many thousands of years," Ritchie explained.

Dingoes are Australia's wild dogs and the greatest land predators in the Land Down Under. They are placental mammals with the same appearance as most dogs, with relatively broad heads and erect ears.

Dingoes (Canis dingo) are genetically related to both wolves and contemporary domestic dogs. Between 5,000 and 8,500 years ago, humans most likely carried the progenitors of contemporary dingoes to the mainland, where the dogs eventually adapted to a diet of marsupials and reptiles. It wasn't until 1788, when the first ships brought British and Irish prisoners to Australia, that modern dogs were brought there.

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