Will cats eat their deceased owner, but dogs will starve to death instead? A friend of mine is a former prosecutor for the Crown/State. He's observed that it was often harder to investigate whether a deceased person was murdered when they own cats because the cats will eat the corpse of their owner. He also observed that dogs will starve to death before they eat their owner. While I don't doubt the veracity of his observations, I am wondering if is this a known phenomenon that can be generalized for all cats and all dogs, or just a sampling peculiar to his practice? If so, one must admire the loyalty of the dog and the survival instinct of the cat!

Google "Dog eats Owner"

CNN

Pravda

Mail Online

It doesn't appear to be common, but then the circumstances in which this occurs aren't real common either as it requires someone dying in a confined area with a dog and not being discovered before the dog runs out of better pickings.

Though google also seems full of some crazy story about a dog saving a diabetic man by eating his toes (though links seems to disagree on where this happened and the number of toes)