100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization Read Online Free PDF

Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons,” Roosevelt said. “No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks—but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since!”
    Fala was not forgotten even after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. The little dog rode the funeral train from Warm Springs, Georgia, to Washington, D.C., and was present for the burial service.
    Afterward he lived with Eleanor Roosevelt and was often mentioned in her long-running syndicated newspaper column,
My Day
.
    Yet throughout the remainder of his long life, Fala never forgot FDR. When the two had traveled together, their car was almost always escorted by police with sirens blaring. Even in old age, Fala’s ears would perk up when he heard the sound of sirens, as if he believed Roosevelt might be coming home.
    The two were finally reunited in 1952, when Fala passed away and was laid to rest beside Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York. Today, at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., a life-size statue of Fala sits dutifully beside a likeness of his master, just as in real life.

CHECKERS
THE DOG WHO SAVED RICHARD
NIXON’S POLITICAL CAREER

    More than twenty years before Watergate, Richard Nixon found himself embroiled in a political scandal so damaging that he had to call upon his dog, Checkers, to save his career.
    As the vice-presidential running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, Nixon was accused of accepting some $18,000 in illegal campaign contributions. The charge severely injured his reputation, so much so that Eisenhower seemed ready to drop him from the ticket. Something extraordinary had to be done.
    On September 23, 1952, Nixon offered a nationally televised response that came to be called the “Checkers speech.” He revealed his rather modest finances, giving the impression of being a middleclass “man of the people” in the process. But what really won over Joe Public was his reference to Checkers, a cocker spaniel given to his family by a well-wisher. “The kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.”
    The speech preserved Nixon’s career—at least for a while. And it won Checkers a place in political history.

BECERRILLO
THE SPANISH WAR DOG WHO
SHAMED THE CONQUISTADORS

    The story of the Spanish conquest of Central and South America is written in blood—most of it Native American. Nations large and small fell to the conquistadors, who again and again crushed numerically superior forces using European “wonder weapons” such as firearms and cavalry.
    One of the greatest of these wonder weapons was the war dog—huge canines who were incredibly strong, seemingly immune to physical pain, and trained to fight alongside their masters in battle. They proved devastating against lightly armed and armored Native American warriors. The conquistadors, knowing that the locals were terrified of these enormous, bloodthirsty killers, took them with them wherever they went. They were as useful for intimidation as they were for battle.
    One of the most famous was named Becerrillo (“the little bull”). During Becerrillo’s time in the New World, his bloody reputation loomed so large that enemies would flee the field at the very sight of him. “He attacked his foes with fury and rage and defended his friends with great valor,” says the