Dogs in History
Meet the dogs who shaped history — from ancient legends to modern heroes. Some of these dogs are famous, others long forgotten, but all played a part in the human story.
Their stories live here and are grouped into six themed categories.
Each tale will surprise you, move you, and change the way you think about dogs and history.
A new story every Friday, about a dog worth remembering.
Saint Guinefort: The Greyhound Saved by the Man Who Erased Him
A friar hearing confessions in medieval France kept being told about a saint he had never heard of. When he investigated, he found a greyhound.
Artemis and Her Hounds: The Dogs Who Made a Goddess
Mortal Greek hunters named their dogs Spirit, Lance, Guardian. The thirteen that ran with Artemis come down to us by color and by kill — and by no names at all.
The Hunting Dog Who Saved a Saint
In every painting of St. Roch, a dog sits at the saint’s feet with a loaf of bread in its mouth. For six centuries, it has been read as religious symbol. It was a real hunting dog — and its owner has been almost entirely forgotten.
The Hounds of Annwn: Wales’s Ghost Dogs Were Never Hellhounds
In the First Branch of the Mabinogion, a Welsh prince steals a kill from a pack of white-and-red-eared hounds — and finds himself answering to the King of the Otherworld.
Black Dog: The Dartmoor Terror Behind The Hound of the Baskervilles
The black dogs of Dartmoor haunted the moors for centuries before Conan Doyle borrowed them — and he wasn't entirely convinced they weren't real.
Mandrakes, Dogs, and the Screams of Legend
Discover how dogs helped harvest the devil’s herb – Mandrakes. A curious root with human-like limbs and potent medicinal properties.
Cerberus: The Dog Who Guarded the Underworld
Rubens painted the underworld’s watchdog on a panel he never meant anyone to look at and got one detail right that almost every artist since has gotten wrong.
