100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization (7 page)

England doesn't have a death penalty for humans, but it does have one for dogs. During the 1990s, an American pit pull terrier named Dempsey was almost its first victim. Instead, she became the center of an international firestorm over animal rights.

England's Dangerous Dogs Act of 1991 was passed after several highly publicized canine attacks on children. The act made it illegal to own “dangerous” breeds (specifically, the Fila Brasileiro, Dogo Argentino, Tosa, and pit bull terriers) without a court exemption and required those who were exempt to be keep their dogs leashed and muzzled at all times in public. The penalty for failing to comply was death—not for the irresponsible owner, but for the dog.

That's where matters stood when Dempsey, a six-year-old female American pit bull owned by London resident Dianne Fanneran, was taken for a walk by one of Fanneran's friends on an April evening in 1992. Dempsey started the trip properly leashed and muzzled, but when she began choking, her human companion removed the muzzle so she could vomit. The infraction was spotted by two passing police officers, who swooped in and
“arrested” Dempsey. Three months later, at Ealing Magistrates' Court, she was sentenced to death under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

Thus began a three-year-long legal ordeal for Fanneran and her luckless dog, who spent the time cooling her heels in various municipal kennels. The case trudged through the British legal system, eventually getting bumped up all the way to the House of Lords—and then back down to the lower courts. In the meantime animal-rights advocates rallied to Dempsey's side, loudly protesting the unfairness of this case in particular and the law in general. Actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot even offered the put-upon pit bull political asylum in France.

Finally, in November 2002, the case was dismissed—not because government officials had seen the folly of their ways, but because of a technicality. Fanneran, it seems, hadn't been informed of her dog's first court date in advance, as the law required. Dempsey went free and lived to the ripe old age of seventeen. But the much-maligned Dangerous Dogs Act remains on the books. In 2002 it even snagged Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, when one of her bull terriers attacked two children. Her dog didn't get the death penalty, but Princess Anne was fined £500.

Most dogs seem to instinctively despise postal employees. But one canine developed a decidedly more charitable view of them—perhaps because he owed his life, his livelihood, and his considerable fame to the kindness of these civil servants.

The poor dog was abandoned as a puppy in 1888 outside an Albany, New York, post office. The employees took pity on him and allowed him to stay the night, curled up on a pile of empty mailbags. Owney, as he came to be called, never seemed to forget that first act of kindness. He adored the smell of mailbags his entire life and would follow just about anyone who carried one. He started shadowing letter carriers, then hitched rides on Albany-area mail wagons, then started hopping the Railway Post Office (RPO) train cars that crisscrossed New York state. Soon he was traveling the entire country by rail, always under the watchful care of the RPO clerks.

Whenever Owney visited a new locale, the area's postal workers marked the occasion by affixing medals or tags to his collar. Eventually these became so numerous, and so heavy, that the postmaster general, John Wanamaker, had a special harness created so Owney would have more places
on which to display them. Even then, most of the hundreds he accumulated simply had to be stored away. If he'd worn them all, Owney wouldn't have been able to move.

His greatest excursion came in 1895, when the postmaster of Tacoma, Washington, sent Owney on a world tour. The dog and his own personal postal clerk visited Asia and the Middle East and traversed the continental United States before returning to Tacoma after 113 days on the road.

During his lifetime, it's estimated that Owney traveled some 140,000 miles (225,000 km) in the company of various letter carriers. When he passed away in 1897, despondent mail clerks raised money to have him stuffed. After years in a glass case at the Post Office Department's Washington, D.C., headquarters, he was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1911. Today he resides in the National Postal Museum, still wearing his original, medal-covered harness.

The man known as the father of the Netherlands, William I, Prince of Orange, rose to power after years of political maneuvering and bitter warfare. But save for the vigilance of a lowly pug named Pompey, the man who led the Dutch to freedom might have died at the end of a Spanish sword.

William, a native German, became governor of the Low Countries in 1559 at the behest of Philip II, King of Spain. But the Spanish ruled the area with such an iron hand that William and the native Dutch grew restive. Finally, the population rose in rebellion, and William helped to lead the way. The Spanish were finally expelled after years of bloody war, and seventeen tiny Low Country states were welded into the nation known as the Netherlands. William, now called the “Father of the fatherland,” was made hereditary ruler, and the Dutch flag and coat of arms were based on his own livery and arms. Most importantly, his direct descendant, William III of Orange, would become King of England and Scotland.

But all that glory would have seemed like a fantasy in 1572, when William was still in the thick of the war with Spain. One evening, after his army had encamped and he'd gone to bed, the Spanish launched a daring midnight attack. The assault
took the Dutch by complete surprise. But as the prince slept next to his beloved pet pug Pompey, the little dog heard the Spanish and roused his master with his barking. William, who might have been killed or captured in the unanticipated attack, bolted from his tent and rode away, barely escaping capture or death.

From that day forward, in honor of Pompey's actions, William always kept a pug at his side—a pug was even carved on his tomb. And for as long as the dynasty lasted, the little dogs who saved the House of Orange were strongly associated with its members.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, is said to have loathed dogs, so he must have found it particularly galling to owe his life to one.

In 1814 a coalition that included Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia banished Napoleon to the island of Elba, a spot of land just off the Italian coast. But after only ten months on this island prison, Napoleon arranged to escape and return to France. To foil British naval patrols, he plotted to leave in a small boat, under cover of darkness, on a rainy, stormy night; a particularly dangerous plot for a landlubber like Napoleon who, by some accounts, couldn't even swim.

At the appointed hour he gamely boarded an open boat, which was to row him through the rough water to the French warship
Inconstant
. At some point, perhaps to appear more heroic, the great conqueror made the extremely unwise decision to stand up in the tiny vessel's pitching gunwale—a nearly fatal error. Napoleon fell overboard into the dark Mediterranean. The boat's crew, straining at their oars, failed to notice his
disappearance and kept rowing, leaving him behind.

The only creature who noted his unscheduled departure was a black-and-white Newfoundland dog aboard a nearby fishing vessel. The dog leapt into the water and swam to the struggling man, who clung to him for dear life during the precious minutes it took for the men on the boat to realize they needed to turn around. Napoleon was eventually hauled back aboard, cold and exhausted but alive, thanks to the timely intervention of a fisherman's companion.

The dog, no doubt, returned to his master's vessel, never to know the pivotal role he'd just played in history. Napoleon toweled off, returned to France, and seized the reins of power. His numerous enemies rallied against him, and the two forces met on June 18, 1815, at the fateful battle that forever ended the emperor's dreams of power—Waterloo.

After great loss of life, Napoleon's plan to conquer Europe ended. Few now realize that, save for the heroism of a lowly Elban dog, his last bid to rule the continent never would have happened.