Dog and Dolphin
Wm. Murray emailed me this interesting photo (click to enlarge). Can you guess if it's real or fake?
Answer: Apparently it's real (when I first looked at it I just assumed it was fake). From Wm.'s email: The dog and the bottle-nose dolphin were pals who "met" about every week or ten days at the beach in front of the Meridian Club on Pine Cay in the Turks & Caicos. My wife and I vacationed there in May 1990 and took many pictures of this strange pairing. We were told that it had been going on for some years prior to our visit. The dog (Taffy) would begin furious barking and race to the water's edge. Moments later the dolphin (JoJo) would come to the shore and they would romp together until enough people got into the water and the dolphin would swim away. Initially he(?) would move a ways along the shore away from the crowd with the dog following, then eventually leave after the people caught up to him a few times. JoJo would nip at Taffy's legs and Taffy would jump on the dolphin's back, leaving scratch marks. The whole thing would last 8-10 minutes and we saw it three different times over about twenty days. (I've since reused JoJo's image for a few of my hoax shots to simulate a shark in the pool or creek.)
Answer: Apparently it's real (when I first looked at it I just assumed it was fake). From Wm.'s email: The dog and the bottle-nose dolphin were pals who "met" about every week or ten days at the beach in front of the Meridian Club on Pine Cay in the Turks & Caicos. My wife and I vacationed there in May 1990 and took many pictures of this strange pairing. We were told that it had been going on for some years prior to our visit. The dog (Taffy) would begin furious barking and race to the water's edge. Moments later the dolphin (JoJo) would come to the shore and they would romp together until enough people got into the water and the dolphin would swim away. Initially he(?) would move a ways along the shore away from the crowd with the dog following, then eventually leave after the people caught up to him a few times. JoJo would nip at Taffy's legs and Taffy would jump on the dolphin's back, leaving scratch marks. The whole thing would last 8-10 minutes and we saw it three different times over about twenty days. (I've since reused JoJo's image for a few of my hoax shots to simulate a shark in the pool or creek.)
More from the Hoax Museum Archives: | |||
Well, I'd rather have a Bottle-Nose in front of me than a Bull shark inside of me.
Posted by Chadds Ford Prefect on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 06:05 PM
For the unread, I believe that CFPinAS is making a pun on Ernest Hemingway's famous quote, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy." Very good, sir or ma'am. I have no problem believing this story. Grew up near wild dolphins, who seasonally had very peculiar behavior relating to other species at will, including dogs and humans. I hear that when you dive with them, however, (which I've never been priveledged to do, yet), the diving instructors *always* warn you not to touch anywhere around their lower abdominal area. It seems that dolphins get horny REALLY easily, and can easily mistake you for either a potential mate, (usually female behavior), or a threat to their acquisition of one, (usually male behavior). In either case, they can get injurious with little warning.
Posted by stork on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 09:22 PM
I meant, injurious to the human swimmer, of course. They seem to do just fine on their own with sex. Witness all the twin calves swimming by their mothers' sides in the late Spring/early Summer off the eastern U.S. coast. A Beautiful sight!
Posted by stork on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 09:30 PM
Wasn't it Dorothy Parker who said that? (the lobotomy thing)
Posted by The Curator in San Diego on Fri Jan 28, 2005 at 10:57 PM
Could very well have been Ms Parker, Alex in S.D.- Word is down in Key West, that it was E.H. that first said that, in a rare reporter's inteview, who asked him why he was constantly drinking straight hard liqour; but what's an old usedtobe hippie wannabe supposed to know, anyway?
Posted by stork on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 12:27 AM
REminds me of that one with the orca whale on the boat.
~Yaanu~
Posted by Yaanu on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 05:54 AM
~Yaanu~
stork, I think that liquor may have been the tasty absinthe, which is known to make one swim with "bottles" of some sort, nose or otherwise.
Posted by Chadds Ford Prefect on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 08:46 AM
Could very well have been, tho probably tempered with a bottle of Puerto Rican 151 rum as a chaser! I don't know, I'm no historian on E.H. Just posted what I'd heard many years ago, truth or not. Truth - what's that??
Posted by stork on Sat Jan 29, 2005 at 10:19 AM
Dolphins & manatees are incredibly friendly. The manatees mostly are looking for food, so they don't swim away if you come close...they'll hang around until the food is gone & then move on. Dolphins are pickier. They might not mind swimming near a person or two...but if someone else shows up...they take off. They also swim alongside boats pretty often. It's pretty standard fare in my neck of the woods.
Posted by Maegan on Sun Jan 30, 2005 at 06:45 AM
unbelieveable this is not a dolphin its looks like a shark 🐍
Posted by Krista on Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 07:22 AM
It is a flippin dolphin...how duz that look like a shark tu u???!!!
Posted by llllllllppppppp on Mon May 29, 2006 at 08:09 AM
it kinda duz look like a shark actually
Posted by jdhfkjdhjdhslfhskdjh on Sun Dec 10, 2006 at 09:42 AM
ha ha ha NO...IT REALLY LOOKS NOTH-ING LIKE A SHARK BUT W/E
Posted by lllllllpppppp on Sun Jan 21, 2007 at 11:19 AM
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