Famous Dogs Who Changed History
As pet parents and dog lovers, we know a dog can truly change a life for the better. But what you may not have known is that there are dogs who changed millions of lives through the course of history. Here are just a few of those incredible dogs and their stories.
Balto: The Dog Who Saved the town of Nome, Alaska
On January 28th of 1925, it was announced that diphtheria had broken out in Nome, Alaska. Separated from the rest of the world for seven months by a frozen ocean, this information was especially frightening to the town and those with loved ones in it. It was one of the harshest winters on record, and since aviation was still being perfected, only transportation through dogsled could save the town.
Despite the temperature dropping 60 degrees below zero, over 20 men and at least 150 dogs, one of them being Balto, set out to deliver the antitoxin over 674 miles away through the Alaskan wilderness. Balto was the lead sled dog and the final leg of the transportation into Nome, saving those in the town. The journey was so remarkable that it eventually became the inspiration for the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race.
Mestral’s Dog: The Inspiration Behind Velcro
Swiss inventor George de Mestral was out with his dog for a walk during the early 1940s, and when they returned home, he found that his dog’s coat was covered in cockleburs. Although they weren’t sticky, to his surprise, they were still holding onto the fur – but yet they could still be easily removed.
With the burs under a microscope, he discovered they had a natural hook shape to them. This observation and discovery led to the basis for his invention of a new, 2-sided fastener he named Velcro, after the French words velour and crochet.
Jofi: The World’s Very First Therapy Dog
Sigmund Freud is probably best known as the father of psychoanalysis – but he was also a pioneer in the world of canine-assisted therapy. Freud owned a Chow, Jofi, who is considered by many to be the world’s very first therapy dog as well as the inspiration behind modern-day pet-assisted therapy care. When Freud would meet with patients, he would often bring Jofi along. He believed that her presence brought a calming sensation to his patients, and even believed they were more open and honest when Jofi was in the room.
Buddy: The Creation of “The Seeing Eye”
After a horseback riding accident, Morris Frank lost the vision in his left eye when he was only 6-years old. Then, ten years later, he became completely blind after an incident during a boxing match claimed his right eye. Later, when Frank was a 20-year-old student at Vanderbilt University, his father read him article titled “The Seeing Eye,” by Dorothy Harris Eustis. Eustis had lived in Switzerland and witnessed how canines were assisting veterans who’d lost their sight in World War 1.
Frank, being a very independent person, had grown tired of relying on other people to guide him around – so he immediately wrote to Eustis. She arranged for him to come to Switzerland and meet one of these phenomenal dogs. And in 1928, Frank was presented with Buddy, a female German Shepherd making him the first American to be presented with a trained seeing-eye dog. Frank then spent 30 days in Switzerland with Eustis, learning how to work and live his life with Buddy. He bonded with her and learned to trust her navigation through even the busiest city streets.
Frank went on to create The Seeing Eye, the first institution in America that trained dogs in guiding the blind. The pair, later on, was instrumental in the creation and passing of the American access laws that would later become the foundation for today’s “American’s With Disabilities Act” service dog laws.
So next time you look at your canine companion and marvel over how they’ve impacted your life – consider that maybe someday they too could change the course of history as we know it.