100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall

English bull terrier, Blue.
    Today Cherry is a media phenomenon, and so is the latest Blue—the ex-coach has owned a line of bull terriers, all with the same name. The two appear together regularly, and Blue is even featured during the opening of Cherry’s
Hockey Night
appearances. In one famous incident, chronicled in the Canadian news magazine
Maclean’s
, the combative canine once took a bite out of Cherry’s wife, Rose. When one of his friends suggested he should “get rid of her,” the coach replied, “Me and Blue’ll sure miss her.”

JIM
THE DOG WHO HAD A PARK
NAMED AFTER HIM

    Dedicating an entire park to a dog is a one-in-a-million event, so the canine it honors had better be a one-in-a-million dog. That was certainly the case for a Llewelyn setter named Jim. In 1999, sixty-two years after his death, Jim’s hometown of Marshall, Missouri, honored him by opening Jim the Wonder Dog Memorial Park.
    Jim’s full name goes a long way toward explaining why he rates his own stretch of greenery in the heart of town. Born on March 10, 1925, to a Louisiana dog breeder, he was acquired by Missouri resident Sam Van Arsdale, who trained him for quail hunting. Jim proved a quick study but seemed otherwise unremarkable. That is, until a fall day several years later, when man and dog were out hunting together. According to legend, Van Arsdale absently said to Jim, “Let’s sit in the shade of that hickory tree and rest.” The dog promptly trotted over to the hickory tree and sat down.
    Intrigued, Van Arsdale then allegedly asked Jim to find an oak tree. Which he did. He also, in rapid succession, picked out a walnut tree, a cedar tree, and several other examples of the local flora, guided only by verbal cues.
    Not long afterward, Jim switched vocationsfrom gun dog to publicity hound. In no time fans started traveling hundreds of miles to the town of Marshall to see the wonder dog in action. They were rarely disappointed. Repeatedly, he seemed to demonstrate the ability to understand commands in any language, from German to Greek—languages of which his master, Van Arsdale, had no knowledge. He could locate specific cars based on their license plate numbers, pick individuals out of crowds based solely on physical descriptions, and “read” written messages. Jim performed before a joint session of the Missouri state legislature and at the University of Missouri before a panel of professors. They told the assembled crowd, according to
Rural Missouri
magazine, that “Jim possessed an occult power that might never come again to a dog in many generations.”
    No wonder some people semiseriously claimed him to be the reincarnation of King Solomon.
    But the talents of the innocuous-looking dog didn’t end there. Jim could reportedly unerringly pick the sexes of unborn babies, and he was a wiz at calling sporting events. Among his many other feats, he allegedly divined the winner of the Kentucky Derby seven years in a row and selected the Yankees to win the 1936 World Series (which they did). During a trip to Florida, bettors actually threatened him with death if he didn’t stop picking winners at a local dog track. After that, Van Arsdale became so afraid of gambling interestsstealing his dog that he kept him close to home, refusing an offer for him to make movies at Paramount and to shill for a dog food company.
    By the time of his death on March 18, 1937, Jim the Wonder Dog was one of the world’s most famous canines. Van Arsdale wanted him buried in the family plot at Ridge Park Cemetery. When local regulations wouldn’t permit it, the earthly remains of the world’s smartest dog were interred in a specially made casket just outside the gate. Over the years the cemetery expanded around the spot, so now Jim lies well within hallowed ground. Fans still visit his grave—and far more stop by downtown’s Jim the Wonder Dog Memorial Park, the