Popular Dogs Known by People Around the Globe - BEAST, BO, HACHIKO

POPULAR DOGS


1. BEAST - The Dog of "Facebook"

Beast is a type of a Hungarian sheep dog, known as a Puli. This herding and livestock guarding breed is owned by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Pricilla Chan. Beast was purchased from Pannonia Alpacas & Kennel, an Oregon breeder. The one-and-a-half year old puppy has its own facebook page where the entries are about his sleeping, eating, playing, among others.




2. BO - The "First Dog"

Image Credit: People Magazine

Bo, born on October 9, 2008, is the pet dog given to the Obama family by Senator Ted Kennedy. The Portuguese water dog was given its name "Bo" by Malia and Sasha, daughters of the Obamas, because their cousins have a cat named Bo, and Michelle Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley (as in Bo Diddley). 


Michelle Obama is so proud of Bo she even said in the David Letterman Show: "Bo is wonderful. He is the smartest dog on the planet. He is my son. I have two girls and a boy." 


"He will come up and he'll put his paw on your leg and he kind of nudges you and then you're like, 'What do you want?' and then he gets excited and you say, 'You want to go out?' and then he starts barking," she adds.

3. HACHIKO - The Dog with Remarkable loyalty

Hachiko waiting at the Shibuya Station

Preserved body of Hachiko in the museum

Statue of Hachiko in Shibuya Station

Hachiko, an Akita breed, was brought to Tokyo in 1924 by Professor Hidesamuro Ueno of Tokyo University. Each day, when Ueno came back from the university, Hachiko would always meet his master at the Shibuya Station at 4 o' clock in the afternoon. However, in May 1925, the college professor died from stroke and never returned. As he did not realize that his master is never coming back, Hachiko did his usual routine of coming to the train station at the same time everyday to wait. During the vigil of the loyal Akita, a former student of Ueno wrote stories on the dog and one of these stories was published in Tokyo's largest newspaper. This put Hachiko to national fame. After 10 years of waiting for his long-deceased master at the same spot and time, Hachiko died on March 1934 on the streets of Shibuya. 


After the his death, Hachiko's body was preserved and displayed in the National Science Museum of Japan. Also, a bronze statue of the Akita was erected in Shibuya Station in the memory of his loyalty. Over the years, two movies were created based on the story of Hachiko: Hachiko Monogatari (Japanese film, 1987) and Hachi: A Dog's Tale (American film, 2009).