Curious dog meets angry crab on South Carolina beach. It didn’t go well, video shows
A curious dog and an irritable crab got together in South Carolina’s Folly Beach this week and re-enacted a scene straight out of a cartoon.
Video of the moment shows the dog did what all dogs do when they see something wiggling: It took a sniff.
That’s when the crab did what crabs do: It reached up and pinched the first thing it could reach, which appeared to be the tip of the 7-year-old dog’s nose.
It took just a split second for the dog, Ellie, to realize her mistake, and the crab is seen flying off the dog’s nose back into the surf. Neither appeared hurt, though the crab is seen whipping its claws back and forth like knives to discourage a second encounter.
Margaret Cabell, the dog’s owner, shared the video Sunday with the 32,000 members of the I Love Folly Beach SC Facebook group, inviting them to “enjoy this classic.”
“She’s fine,” Cabell said of the dog. “I think it may have grabbed her hair/whiskers. She will think twice before sniffing another crab.”
Cabell told McClatchy News her motive in sharing the video was to entertain people who can’t get to the beach due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Folly Beach town officials have refused to reopen beaches and rental spaces to non-residents, leading to threats of legal action by Charleston County officials, McClatchy News reported Wednesday.
Most coastal communities in the Carolinas have started to reopen beaches during the pandemic, but with crowd control restrictions in place to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
“I know people can’t get out to the beach,” Cabell said. “So we share pics and videos of the beach on a group to reconnect people to Folly Beach. I thought the group would like it and they really did.”
Reaction to the video has been one of sympathy for the dog and calls to “open the beaches to all.”
The villain in the video appears to be a ghost crab, “the fastest and most agile crab” in the Carolinas, according to HiltonHead.com. Ghost crabs are known for digging burrows up to 4 feet deep on beaches, where they hide during the day, the site says.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 7:23 AM with the headline "Curious dog meets angry crab on South Carolina beach. It didn’t go well, video shows."