100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall Page A

centerpiece of which is a life-size statue of the brilliant canine.
    OTHER CANINES OF
DISTINCTION
    SPUDS MACKENZIE: A four-legged shill for Bud Light. This distinctive bull terrier (who was actually a female named Honey Tree Evil Eye) debuted in a 1987 Super Bowl commercial. Ironically, “Spuds” died of kidney failure in 1993
.
    LITTLE DUKE: An Airedale who was the childhood pet of Marion Robert Morrison, the man who would become John Wayne, a.k.a. “The Duke.” Wayne got his nickname as a boy, when neighbors started referring to him as “Big Duke” to differentiate him from his canine companion
.
    BUMMER AND LAZARUS: Two stray dogs who were the talk of San Francisco in the early 1860s. They were so popular that their adventures were regularly published in the local papers
.
    LUCKY: The official mascot of
The National Enquirer
during its heyday in the 1970s
.
    TEDDY: A Great Dane who appeared in many Max Sennet comedies and was the first canine movie star in the United States
.



SGT. STUBBY
THE HIGHEST-RANKING DOG
IN WORLD WAR I

    Many combat dogs have been drafted into military service. Some are yanked from their civilian homes and into the armed forces, while others are raised from puppyhood for duty on the front lines. But the brown-and-white American pit bull terrier known as Stubby was strictly a volunteer. The bedraggled dog, who got his name because of his abbreviated tail, was found as a puppy by U.S. Army Private John Robert Conroy when he was training for deployment in Europe during World War I. Stubby soon became a boot camp favorite. He even learned to “salute” by raising his right paw to his right eyebrow.
    Stubby accompanied Conroy’s unit, the 102nd Infantry Division, when they shipped out for France. But his comrades in arms soon discovered Stubby was far more than a mere mascot. One night, when his sensitive nose detected a surprise poison gas attack, he saved numberless lives by running through the trenches, barking and tugging at sleeping soldiers. He also patrolled no-man’s land, sniffing out wounded troops and either summoning help or personally leading them to safety. On one occasion he surprised and captured a German forward observer who was attempting to spy onallied defensive positions. Stubby flushed him from behind a bush, chased him down, and clamped the soldier’s backside firmly in his jaws—a grip he resolutely maintained until men from his unit arrived to take charge of the prisoner. For his actions that day, the commander of the 102nd awarded the dog the rank of sergeant.
    Stubby participated in more than a dozen battles, surviving everything from repeated poison gas attacks to an uncomfortably close encounter with a hand grenade. He returned to the United States with Conroy, where he received a hero’s welcome. He met President Woodrow Wilson, was inducted into the American Legion, and received a Humane Society medal from his “supreme commander,” Gen. Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing, the leader of the American Expeditionary Forces during the war. But best of all, he was allowed to retire from the military with Conroy, with whom he lived happily—and peacefully—until his death in 1926.

BELLE
THE DOG WHO DIALED 911

    Over the centuries, countless dogs have summoned assistance for their stricken owners. But few of those canine heroes displayed as much presence of mind—not to mention technical savvy—as an English beagle named Belle. Instead of running for help, she
dialed
for it.
    In what was probably the luckiest move of his life, Florida resident Kevin Weaver acquired the diminutive hound from a pet store. Good fortune also smiled on Belle that day, because the feisty dog had already been returned to the store by two previous owners who were dissatisfied with her behavior.
    Weaver is a lifelong diabetic who suffers from potentially dangerous seizures if his blood sugar level drops too low. Since he