Milton, Scotland — Donna Cooper still has no idea why her normally obedient border collie, Ben, leaped to his death this spring off a tall rural bridge in Milton without any warning or apparent rationale.
"Ben's feet never touched the wall," she said, referring to the waist-high, 18-inch-thick barrier that has been hurdled - inexplicably and with a near certainty of death - by scores of dogs during the past three decades. "He just went straight over."
Maybe it's the whistle of the wind from distant Loch Lomond, or the fabled "white lady" said to haunt an adjacent mansion or the rustle of tree branches at a nearby waterfall.
Nobody knows for sure, but something strange is causing dogs to jump off the Overtoun Estate bridge, west of Glasgow, at an alarming rate. Most are killed by the 60-foot fall or are so severely injured that veterinarians must put them to sleep. Others have survived, only to come back and try again.
The mystery has prompted investigations by an animal behaviorist and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Even a group of paranormal researchers visited recently. None has found a plausible explanation.
"Dogs don't commit suicide. People do," said Joyce Stuart, a professional animal behaviorist with 16 years of experience. "Dogs are survivors, born survivors. Everything dogs do is for a reason. ... They're not stupid like we are."
So why, she asks, have dogs been leaping off the bridge at rates reportedly as high as one per month for the past 20 or 30 years?
The bridge itself provides precious few clues. Built in the 1890s, the one-lane span arches over a leafy ravine and waterfall.
Several semicircular alcoves jut outward from the walls at 20-foot intervals. Cooper said she thought maybe Ben was searching for her toddler daughter, who was hiding in one of the alcoves at the time.
The bridge lies within the grounds of the 85-acre Overtoun Estate. Built in the 1860s by industrialist James White, the mansion fell into disrepair in the 1930s. For 22 years, it was a maternity hospital. Then it was occupied by a succession of Christian missionary groups.
Bob Hill, a Christian missionary from Fort Worth, Texas, is renovating the mansion to provide a retreat for inner-city youths. He said at least three frantic dog owners have knocked on his door asking for help after their dogs jumped off the bridge.
Hill thinks the dogs are distracted by the waterfall or by the many gray squirrels that frolic along the bridge. His own two dogs have never been tempted to jump, he said.
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