Free 100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall Page A

Now, thanks in part to the fame of its best-known representative, it is the national dog of Japan. Hachiko lives on in books and films, and can even be seen, stuffed, at the National Science Museum in Tokyo.

ASHLEY
WHIPPET
THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF
FRISBEE DOGS

    Dogs have chased Frisbees ever since the plastic discs were invented, but it took the work of one exceptional dog to turn this afternoon pastime into a bona fide sport.
    The canine in question was named Ashley Whippet. Born on June 4, 1971, Ashley was acquired by Ohio State University (OSU) student Alex Stein when he was just a puppy. Allegedly named after the Ashley Wilkes character in
Gone With the Wind
, with a surname of Whippet because he was, in fact, of the whippet breed, the dog began pursuing Frisbees around the OSU campus at the age of six months. Although other dogs did the same thing, Ashley did it with tremendous élan—streaking after the discs at thirty-five miles per hour (56 km/h), leaping an unbelievable nine feet (3 m) into the air to catch them, and contorting his body into artful, crowd-pleasing poses as he did so. The dog drew audiences wherever he went.
    Stein decided to move to Hollywood and get Ashley into show business. Talent agents wouldn’t give the pooch the time of day, so the duo took a more direct approach. On August 5, 1974, the Los Angeles Dodgers were set to host the CincinnatiReds in front of a national TV audience. Stein bought a ticket and smuggled Ashley into the stadium. At the bottom of the eighth inning, just before the Dodgers came to bat, he and his dog sprinted out to centerfield and started an impromptu round of fetch. The crowd was so amazed that the game ground to a halt. Announcer Joe Garagiola, who was supposed to be talking about baseball, did “play by play” for the dog instead.
    For his trouble, Stein was fined $250 and arrested for trespassing. But the dose of national exposure turned Ashley into a canine sports hero. He appeared on
The Tonight Show, Monday Night Football
, and even during halftime at Super Bowl XII. In 1975 the World Frisbee Championships (previously an allhuman affair) inaugurated a “Catch and Fetch” competition for canines—an event Ashley won three years in a row. He so dominated the event that in 1982 it was renamed the Ashley Whippet Invitational. Though Ashley passed on in March 1985, the contest that bears his name still attracts thousands of canine participants.

RIN TIN TIN
THE DOG WHO SAVED
A MOVIE STUDIO

    Many dogs are famous for saving individual lives. But one canine was responsible for rescuing an entire company. This honor belongs to the legendary German shepherd Rin Tin Tin, the four-legged big-screen star whose box office receipts single-handedly saved Warner Bros. from ruin.
    It was a miracle that the studio’s savior even survived his puppyhood. The dog who would become a celebrity was born in France at the end of World War I, inside an abandoned, bombed-out kennel. United States Army Corporal Lee Duncan found him starving there along with his mother and his four littermates. Duncan, a dog lover, found homes for the mother and three of the pups, but he kept a male and a female for himself. He named them after two French puppet characters: Nanette and Rin Tin Tin.
    Nanette died from distemper shortly after she and her brother traveled with Duncan to his Los Angeles home. Duncan worked at a hardware store to make ends meet and spent his spare time training Rin Tin Tin. Convinced that his furry friend had a big future in show business, he wrote a script for him called
Where the North Begins
and offered it and Rin Tin Tin (nicknamed Rinny) to any studioexec who would give them the time of day.
    As it turned out, none of them would. Duncan was turned down again and again. Then, one afternoon, he and Rinny happened to spot a film crew trying to shoot a scene that featured an extremely uncooperative wolf. Duncan offered his dog’s services,