Images are circulating social networking sites Tumblr and Facebook that appear to show a young man force feeding a dog a bottle of vodka.

At this time the source of the photo is unknown and we can only speculate what is going on in the photo. After examination it appears unlikely that the dog is actually being force fed the vodka. The grip on the dog is loose and the angle of the bottle seems incorrect. During our research into the source of the photo we discovered several sites that strongly assert that the bottle cap was still in place and the dog was chewing on the end of the bottle, though this cannot be confirmed.

It is likely that either the dog is merely chewing on the bottle or that the photo was staged in a misguided attempt at humour.

UPDATE: A police investigation confirmed that the photo shows a dog chewing at the end of a capped bottle. See here.


The Internet, and social networking sites like Facebook, are perfect platforms for spreading untruths, misinformation, rumor and propaganda. Thousands of inaccurate, exaggerated, deceptive or just plain false messages are circulated every single day.

For the anti-scam community to successfully tackle this plethora of false rumours, it is important that anyone who uses the Internet be able to identify false rumours and fully understands the possible consequences of spreading false information.

We have a two part blog post that helps provide this information. Part 1 deals with how to spot and debunk Internet rumours and Part 2 deals with the reasons why you should never circulate false information.

Additionally if you have fallen for this rumour or have Facebook friends that have, you can join our growing Facebook page here.