American cartoonist Charles Schulz based his comic character Snoopy on his family’s Basset hound Spike. In later strips a dog called Spike appears as Snoopy’s brother.
Bobby was a Skype terrier who faithfully guarded his master’s grave at Greyfriars, Edinburgh, for 14 years from 1858. The true story of the devoted dog has been the subject of books and films.
The English poet’s cocker spaniel became famous from Virginia Woolf’s book Flush: A Biography (1933), which looks at the world from the dog’s point of view.
