Free 100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall

one of history’s most famous canine-related phrases.
    The story begins on October 18, 1869—the night Old Drum met his untimely end. The trusted friend and hunting companion of a farmer named Charles Burden, Old Drum was shot and killed by Samuel Ferguson when he strayed onto the property of Ferguson’s uncle, Leonidas Hornsby. Hornsby (who was also the brother-in-law of Old Drum’s owner) had lost some sheep to marauding canines and vowed to shoot the first stray dog he caught on his land. Unfortunately for Drum, it happened to be him.
    Burden, who considered Old Drum a friend rather than a possession, was beside himself. Refusing to let bygones be bygones, he sued Hornsby for damages. The case wended its way through three trials before it was finally settled on September 23, 1870, at the Court of Common Pleas in Warrensburg. Burden brought in one of the biggest guns inMissouri jurisprudence to plead his case: George Graham Vest, a soon-to-be U.S. senator who was as talented at oratory as he was skilled in the law. When Vest closed his arguments with a stirring “eulogy” for the deceased dog, there wasn’t a dry eye in the courthouse—especially on the jury, which found in favor of the still-bereft Burden.
    What sealed the deal? Perhaps it was Vest’s elegant turn of phrase. Among the many complimentary things he said about Old Drum in particular and dogs in general, he offered this shining sentence: “The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.” Vest, in his roundabout way, coined the phrase “man’s best friend.”
    The winning speech earned Burden a fairly substantial $50 in damages. Ironically, Old Drum’s killer, Samuel Ferguson, was himself gunned down and killed a few years later in Oklahoma.

HACHIKO
THE LOYAL DOG WHO BECAME A
JAPANESE LANDMARK

    For decades, one of the most popular meeting places for train travelers passing through Tokyo’s Shibuya Station has been the Shibuya Hachikoguchi exit. The spot is the site of a famous statue of Hachiko, a large Akita who is famous in Japan for his faithfulness. For years, at pretty much the same spot that his bronze likeness now occupies, Hachiko waited patiently for his beloved master—a master who could never return to him.
    The dog who would become a legend was once the pet of Eisaburo Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s department of agriculture. Every workday morning Hachiko would accompany him to Shibuya Station, and every day at 3:00 P.M. he would sit quietly on the landing, awaiting his return. But one day in May 1925, the professor fell ill at work and died suddenly. That afternoon, the loyal Hachiko waited dutifully at his usual spot, only to be disappointed when his master failed to step off the train. Disappointed—but not deterred.
    For the next eleven years, Hachiko returned to the platform every day at three o’clock, hoping against hope to catch sight of the professor. The dog became a fixture at the station and was even given sleeping quarters in a storeroom. Eventuallythe story of the dog reached the newspapers, and Hachiko became a national icon. A popular children’s story was based on his life, and in 1934, a bronze statue of him was erected at Shibuya Station. Interestingly, Hachiko himself was on hand for the unveiling. The old dog, in spite of his fame, would keep his lonely vigil until his death on March 8, 1935.
    During World War II, the original statue was melted down for use in the Japanese war effort, but a new statue was unveiled in exactly the same spot in 1948, created by the son of the artist who struck the original. Today Hachiko’s likeness still waits for his beloved master, unaware that his lonely vigil had important repercussions for his breed. During his lifetime, the Akita was sliding toward extinction.