MYTH
She died within hours of launch, from overheating and stress. The truth was disclosed in 2002, forty-five years after the world had finished mourning the version it was given.
Read the full story: Laika: The Canine Cosmonaut Who Touched Our Hearts
HISTORY
Nine kings had gathered to walk behind the coffin. Ahead of them walked Caesar. Alongside a Highland soldier who held his lead, the small white terrier preceded the procession—placed above the heads of state as a matter of deliberate arrangement.
Read the full story: Caesar: The Dog Who Walked Before Kings
Hesiod gave him fifty. Pindar is credited with a hundred. Three won out slowly, because three is what fits inside a painting — and Rubens knew it.
Read the full story: Cerberus: The Dog Who Guarded the Underworld
Some did. Others sat in houses that kept lapdogs, which suggests display as much as deterrence — a doormat announcing that this household was the kind of household that had something worth guarding.
Read the full story: Cave Canem: What Rome's 'Beware of Dog' Signs Really Mean
He was lying on a dung heap, too weak to stand, covered in ticks. Odysseus saw him, could not break his disguise to go to him, and wiped away a tear he had to hide.
Read the full story: Argos: The Dog Who Waited
Balto ran the final leg and the newspapers made him a hero. Togo had already covered several times the distance, including a crossing of Norton Sound as the ice was breaking apart beneath the team.
Read the full story: Togo and Balto: The Sled Dog Heroes History Got Wrong
