Because underdog stories are the best, many literary dogs are mutts, strays, and mixed breeds. Buck, a St. Bernard-shepherd mix, may be literature's most famous dog.
Eric Knight's Lassie Come Home introduced Lassie to the public before the TV show. A brave dog travels hundreds of miles to find her true love in this 1940 novel. Lassie Come Home is a great dog story.
Terriers are frequently depicted as the best and bravest dogs in literature. Literary terriers include Cairn terrier Toto from L.
Soulful beagles make great characters. Shiloh stars in Phyllis Reynolds Taylor's heartbreaking 1990s children's book series about a kid who rescues an abused beagle.
While the books call him a "boarhound," Hagrid's dog Fang from the Harry Potter series is played by a mastiff in the movies.
Jack London's Buck is half St. Bernard, but Stephen King's Cujo is the most famous literary St. Bernard. King's classic horror title hasn't hurt the breed's popularity.
Virginia Woolf's Flush may be literature's most distinguished dog. Flush, a fictionalized biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, was a departure for the modernist author.
Nana, Peter Pan's nanny dog, is based on the author's beloved Newfoundland, but she was played by a St. Bernard in the movie.