35 Fun Facts About Newfoundland Dog

In 1828 a Newfoundland dog named Hairy Man helped Ann Harvey's family save over 160 shipwrecked emigrants from which country?

Ireland. Their brig, the Despatch, had left Derry for Quebec when a storm threw it onto rocks; over three days Ann, then 17, her father, her young brother and the dog brought the survivors off.

Which trait does the American breed standard call "the most important single characteristic" of the Newfoundland?

Sweetness of temperament. The standard calls it the hallmark of the breed, so a dog strong enough to save a grown man from drowning is judged first of all on its disposition.

How is a Newfoundland's fur structured?

A thick double coat. The coarse, oily outer layer sheds water while the soft, dense undercoat holds in warmth, which is what lets the dog keep working in cold wind and icy seas.

Which coat colour for Newfoundlands is recognised by the American Kennel Club but rejected by Britain's Kennel Club?

Grey. The American standard recognises black, brown, grey and white-and-black, while the British one permits only black, brown and white-and-black, so a grey dog can be shown in one country and not the other.

Which messy habit are Newfoundlands known for?

Drooling. The American Kennel Club puts the breed at the very top of its drooling scale, so owners are told to keep a towel on hand.

What kind of dog is the Newfoundland classed as?

Working dog. Kennel clubs file it with the breeds developed to help people at their jobs, and the American Kennel Club notes it can haul lumber or pull a drowning swimmer to shore.

The Newfoundland was originally bred to work for whom?

Fishermen. Aboard their boats the dogs hauled in heavy nets and fetched gear, and sometimes crew, out of the sea; ashore they were hitched to carts to move the catch.

Which feature of a Newfoundland's feet helps it swim?

Webbed paws. Skin between the toes turns each foot into a paddle, and with large lungs the dog can swim long distances, which let it fetch gear and people out of rough seas.

What is the white-and-black Newfoundland colour pattern called?

Landseer. The name honours the painter Sir Edwin Landseer, whose portrait of a black-and-white Newfoundland, A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, made the look famous.

Which country's kennel club permits only black and white/black Newfoundlands in the ring?

Canada. The breed's homeland keeps the strictest rule: its standard calls black the traditional colour, admits the white-and-black pattern for its historical significance, and disqualifies a dog with any other markings.

The FCI recognises a taller white-and-black offshoot of the Newfoundland as a separate breed, developed in which two countries?

Germany and Switzerland. Continental Europe registers the taller, leaner dog as a breed of its own, while British and North American clubs still count the same white-and-black pattern as a Newfoundland colour.

A large North American study found the Newfoundland most predisposed to which condition?

Hip dysplasia. The hip joint forms badly and sits loose, which leads to arthritis, pain and limping, a risk the study found greater in the biggest breeds.

Whose 1766 journal gives the Oxford English Dictionary its earliest record of "Newfoundland dog"?

Joseph Banks. He was a 23-year-old naturalist collecting plants and birds in Newfoundland and Labrador that year, two years before he sailed round the world with Cook on the Endeavour.

The smaller "lesser Newfoundland" is better known as what?

St. John's water dog. It took its name from the island's capital; the last two known dogs, already old, were photographed in a remote part of Newfoundland in the early 1980s, and the type died with them.

Which group of modern breeds descends from the lesser Newfoundland?

Retrievers. Shipped from Newfoundland to England in the 19th century, the smaller dogs were crossed with local breeds, and the Labrador, Flat-Coated, Curly-Coated and Chesapeake Bay types all trace back to them.

The lesser Newfoundland died out in the 1980s, partly because heavy taxes on dogs were meant to encourage which kind of farming?

Sheep farming. Free-roaming dogs were seen as a threat to flocks, so their owners were taxed and restricted, and Britain's long quarantine on imported animals from 1885 then choked off the export trade.

Which famous Newfoundland travelled with the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific?

Seaman. Meriwether Lewis paid $20 for him and prized him too much to sell, turning down a Shawnee man's offer of furs for the dog, whom he praised as very active, strong and docile.

Meriwether Lewis wrote in 1803 that his Newfoundland caught which tree-dwelling animals as they swam across the Ohio River?

Squirrels. They were crossing the river in numbers, and the dog would kill them in the water and swim back to the boat with them for Lewis, who found them fat and pleasant eating when fried.

Lewis's dog was long thought to be called what, thanks to a transcription error?

Scannon. Editors misread Lewis's handwriting for decades, until a 1984 study of place names found the Montana creek he had named after the dog, which settled the true spelling.

Which animal's bite severed an artery in the hind leg of Lewis and Clark's expedition dog?

A beaver. One of the party had wounded it, and when the dog swam out to fetch it the animal bit through his leg; Lewis struggled to stop the bleeding and feared the wound would prove fatal.

Which American poet called Carlo, her big dog thought to have been a Newfoundland, her "shaggy ally"?

Emily Dickinson. She wrote that her companions were the hills, the sundown and a dog as large as herself, bought by her father, and that they were better than people because they know but do not tell.

In 1995 Boo, a 10-month-old Newfoundland, pulled a drowning man from the Yuba River in which US state?

California. Boo was out walking with his owner when he spotted a man struggling in the swollen current, dived in unprompted, took him by the arm and towed him to the bank.

Which Swiss breed was crossed with Newfoundlands in the 19th century, only for ice to cling to the longer fur?

St. Bernard. Monks at the Great St Bernard hospice hoped, by one account, that longer hair would protect their rescue dogs from the cold; instead the frozen fur made the dogs less effective at mountain rescue.

Newfoundlands are said to have been among the founding stock of which giant German breed?

Leonberger. Heinrich Essig, a 19th-century politician and dog dealer in the town of Leonberg, said he bred it from Newfoundlands and big Alpine hospice dogs to be a majestic pet fit for royalty.

Lord Byron's Newfoundland, the subject of "Epitaph to a Dog", was named what?

Boatswain. Byron raised him a monument larger than the poet's own tomb and had the poem carved on it beneath a tribute praising the dog's beauty, strength and courage.

Byron's Newfoundland died of which disease in 1808?

Rabies. Byron reportedly nursed the dying dog himself, with no fear of being bitten and infected, and when it was over he wrote the poem in his memory.

Where is the tomb of Byron's Newfoundland?

Newstead Abbey. The monument at Byron's family estate carries his poem beneath a prose tribute long assumed to be his own work, though it was written by his friend John Hobhouse.

J. M. Barrie's Newfoundland Luath inspired which Peter Pan character?

Nana. Barrie's Darlings insist on having a nurse like their neighbours but are too poor to pay a human one, so they engage a Newfoundland, who proves a treasure of a nurse.

Sergeant Gander, a Newfoundland regimental mascot, died carrying a grenade away from wounded soldiers during the 1941 defence of which British colony?

Hong Kong. Gander, mascot of the Royal Rifles of Canada, twice charged the attackers and halted their advance before the grenade killed him, saving the wounded men he had been guarding.

Which honour was Gander posthumously awarded in 2000?

Dickin Medal. Often called the animals' Victoria Cross, it reached Gander almost 60 years late, after veterans' associations and the Canadian War Museum pressed his case.

Neptune was a Newfoundland given to which explorer for his lost expedition?

Sir John Franklin. Neptune was a gift from the explorer's wife, Jane, and sailed from England in 1845 with a ship's cat and a pet monkey named Jacko on the Arctic voyage from which no one returned.

Rigel, a Newfoundland said to have swum beside a lifeboat for hours, is tied to which ship?

Titanic. In the tale he barks to stop the rescue ship Carpathia running down a lifeboat, but no record exists of the Carpathia sailor said to have told the story and taken the dog home.

Which Civil War general turned president warned White House staff they would all be fired if his son's Newfoundland, Faithful, died?

Ulysses S. Grant. His young son Jesse's earlier dogs had each died soon after arriving, so Grant put the steward on notice, and Faithful lived out the rest of the family's stay in the White House.

Swansea Jack died in 1937 after eating what?

Rat poison. Nobody knows whether it was left out on purpose; his death at just seven caused such outrage that the Canine Defence League offered a £25 reward for information.

Bilbo, a Newfoundland who worked as a beach lifeguard dog, patrolled the sands of which English county?

Cornwall. Bilbo patrolled Sennen beach near Land's End until a 2008 dog ban took him off the sand; thousands signed a petition for his return, and he was allowed back part-time.