🧩 BND Motif Index · M1292
They're eating the pets
Newcomers are said to eat the neighbors' cats and dogs, the old slur that strangers are savages at the table, told of Haitians in Springfield by Trump in 2024 ('They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats') and since quoted back as the byword for his wildest claims.
- 3claims filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 1center show it came up on
- 2claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (1 left-leaning, 1 center, 0 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- left-leaning
- center
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “the heinous racialized anti-black lie that Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs” “They're eating dogs. They're eating cats. They're eating the pets.” “They're frying the dogs, they're frying the cats!” “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs.” “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” “They’re frying the pets of the people that live there.” “Those dehumanizing lies he told about Haitians.”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 1
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
- 2026-11-01 “Trump spread dehumanizing lies about Haitians eating pets during his campaign.” 2
Told on the right 0
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the right so far.
Retold online 2
claims many people posted in their own words
- 2026-10-29 “They are eating the cats and dogs.”
- 2026-10-28 “They are eating the cats and the dogs.”
M1292 · first seen 2026-10-29 · last 2026-11-01 · what this is · how the index works