Dogs in the Life and Fiction
of ERB
Part 2: ERB's Canine Characters
by Alan Hanson
In his fiction, Edgar Rice
Burroughs created literally hundreds of dogs of many breeds, both wild
and domestic. However, he only gave names to nine of those dogs, each of
which played a role in the story in which it appeared. Some of those roles
were small, such as those played by Tige and Za, well others were major
characters, like Woola and Raja. Below are profiles of ERB’s nine named
canine characters, in the order in which the author created them.
Woola
Owner/Caretaker – John Carter
A Princess of Mars -The Warlord of Mars
Technically, Woola was neither by appearance nor species
a “dog,” as we know it on Earth. On Mars, Woola was a “calot,”
which John Carter likened to a “watch dog” during their first encounter
in A Princess of Mars. Woola certainly didn’t look like a
dog. “The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony,” Carter noted.
“Its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the
jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks.” Carter first
saw Woola when the calot “waddled” into a room on its ten short
legs and sat down “like an obedient puppy” by the Green Martian
female Sola.
When John Carter tried to escape the Tharks, he realized
that Woola had been tasked with keeping him from leaving the ancient city
ruins. During his escape attempt, the earthman learned about some of the
amazing abilities of these Martian dogs.
“I had thought his short legs a bar to swiftness, but
had he been coursing with greyhounds the latter would have appeared as
though asleep on a door mat. As I was to learn, this is the fleetest animal
on Mars, and owing to its intelligence, loyalty, and ferocity is used in
hunting, in war, and as the protector of the Martian man.”
Originally, Carter could not bring himself to call such
a “hideous creature” as Woola a dog, but after the beast nearly
died saving him from a great white ape, the earthman and the calot developed
a relationship parallel to a man and his dog on Earth. The injured creature
“lay grasping upon the floor of the chamber, his great eyes fastened
upon me in what seemed a pitiful appeal for protection. I would not withstand
that look, nor could I have deserted my rescuer without giving as good
an account of myself in his behalf as he had in mine.” After Carter
stopped a green Martian from killing the injured Woola, the earthman received
all the “love,” “gratitude,” and “compassion” the
beast had to offer.
“I had never petted nor fondled him, but now I sat
upon the ground and putting my arms around his heavy neck I stroked and
coaxed him, talking in my newly acquired Martian tongue as I would have
to my hound at home, as I would have talked to any other friend among the
lower animals. His response to my manifestation of affection was remarkable
to a degree; he stretched his great mouth to its full width, baring the
entire expanse of his upper rows of tusks and wrinkling his snout until
his great eyes were almost hidden by the folds of flesh. If you have ever
seen a collie smile you have some idea of Woola’s facial distortion. He
threw himself upon his back and fairly wallowed at my feet; jumped up and
sprang upon me, rolling me upon the ground by his great weight; then wriggling
and squirming around me like a playful puppy presenting its back for the
petting it craves.”
Carter noted, “There was no further question of authority
between us; Woola was my devoted slave from that moment hence; and I his
only and undisputed master.” Indeed, from that day, John Carter’s “Martian
hound” never voluntarily left his side during the first 10 years he
spent on Barsoom, as recorded in A Princess of Mars.
John Carter was never reunited with Woola during his exploits
recounted in The Gods of Mars. However, the Martian hound
accompanied Carter to the Valley Dor in the opening pages of The
Warlord of Mars. As the two searched for Dejah Thoris in the waterways
under the valley cliffs, Burroughs revealed John Carter could communicate
his thoughts to Woola. “I let him know partially by the weird and uncanny
telepathy of Barsoom and partly by word of mouth that we were upon the
trail of those who had recently occupied the boat through which we had
just passed. A soft purr, like that of a great cat, indicated that Woola
understood.”
Woola was at John Carter’s side throughout The Warlord
of Mars. Like a bloodhound, he guided his master through the mazes
beneath the Valley Dor and its Golden Cliffs to the edges of the Otz Mountains.
From the Kaolian Road to Barsoom’s frozen north, Woola, “true to the
instincts and training of a Martian war-dog,” fought savagely at John
Carter’s side. At the battle at Okar, Carter referred to Woola as a “huge
Martian war-hound.”
Woola last appeared in The Warlord of Mars
at the heels of his master and Dejah Thoris as they walked in “the gorgeous
garden of the jeddaks that graces the inner courtyard of the palace of
Kadabra.”
Tige
Owner/Caretaker – Mr. and Mrs. Shorter
The Mucker
Tige was the first fictional Earth dog with a name created
by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A mongrel hound-dog, Tige lived on a farm owned
by the Shorters near Shawnee, Kansas, a short drive south of Kansas City.
One morning in early 1916, Billy Burne approached the farmhouse and purchased
some food from Mrs. Shorter. Her husband was not at home at the time. After
Billy and his travelling companion, Bridge, had finished their breakfast
nearby, they heard a gunshot and a woman scream from the direction of the
Shorter farmhouse.
Earlier, two tramps had come to the farmhouse and asked
to use the telephone. When she had first seen them coming, Mrs. Shorter
grabbed a shotgun and called Tige, who had been sleeping in the kitchen,
to come to her side. The tramps finally convinced the woman to let them
in the house to use the phone, but she kept Tige by her side just in case.
When it appeared the two men weren’t a threat to his master’s wife, Tige
wandered back into the kitchen.
When the tramps discovered the Shorters had over a thousand
dollars in cash hidden in a Bible, one grabbed the woman while the other
gathered up the money. The commotion roused the dog.
“At the first cry of the woman, the dog rose, growling
and bounded into the room. The tramp leaning against the wall saw the brute
coming, bristling and savage. The shotgun stood almost within the man’s
reach — a step and it was in his hands. As though sensing the fellow’s
intentions the dog wheeled from the tramp upon the floor, toward whom he
had leaped, and sprang for the other ragged scoundrel. The muzzle of the
gun met him halfway. There was a deafening roar. The dog collapsed to the
floor, his chest torn out.”
Billy Burne arrived just in time to save Mrs. Shorter
from being killed by the tramps, but Tige was dead where he hit the floor.
The dog’s name was not revealed until much later in the story, when it
came up in a conversation in Mexico between Billy and the Shorters’ son,
Eddie. Tige was the only one among the nine named dogs in ERB’s fiction
that died during the story in which he appeared.
Terkoz
Owner/Caretaker – Tarzan
The Eternal Lover
Lord Greystoke must have been a great lover of dogs, as
evidenced by the number of them that lived on his African estate. When
Tarzan brought Meriem out of the wild to live with him and Jane in The
Son of Tarzan, the Greystoke dogs were the first to receive her.
As Tarzan and Meriem approached the bungalow, “a dozen dogs ran barking
toward them — gaunt wolf hounds, a huge great Dane, a nimble-footed collie
and a number of yapping, quarrelsome fox terriers.”
“At first their appearance was savage and unfriendly
in the extreme; but once they recognized the foremost black warriors, and
the white men behind him their attitude underwent a remarkable change.
The collie and the fox terriers became frantic and delirious with joy,
and while the wolf hounds and the great Dane were not a whit less delighted
at the return of their master their greetings were of a more dignified
nature. Each in turn sniffed at Meriem who displayed not the slightest
fear of any of them.”
The wolf hounds were still wary of Meriem, but her soft
touch upon their heads and her gentle voice soon brought canine smiles
to these fiercest of Tarzan dogs. “It was as though in some subtle way
the girl had breathed a message of kindred savagery to their savage ears.
With her slim fingers grasping the collar of a wolf hound upon either side
of her, Meriem walked on toward the bungalow.”
One of the wolf hounds at Meriem’s side that day may have
been Terkoz, although his name is not specifically mentioned in The
Son of Tarzan. If Terkoz was there to greet Meriem that day, he
would have been one of Tarzan’s senior dogs. Nearly 14 years of narrative
time had passed since Terkoz, then already a mature wolfhound at the height
of his physical powers, had played a key role in events recorded in The
Eternal Lover.
In the fall of 1916, Barney Custer and his sister Victoria
came to visit the Greystokes at their African estate. Frightened by the
tremors of an earthquake, Victoria swooned, regaining consciousness three
minutes later. All that is known of Tarzan’s wolfhound, Terkoz, revolves
around his appearance in a dream that Victoria Custer experienced during
those three minutes. We know that Terkoz was real, however, because Victoria
mentioned his name after she recovered from her swoon. Clearly, Burroughs
intended that the reader infer that Terkoz’s image and actions in the girl’s
dream reflected those of the real life wolfhound she had come to know during
her time at the Greystoke estate before the earthquake.
Victoria’s dream started with Terkoz, “one of Lord
Greystoke’s great wolfhounds,” standing at her side. “He had taken
a great fancy to Victoria Custer from the first,” Burroughs noted,
“and whenever permitted to do so remained close beside her.” Like
Meriem many years later, Victoria must have won Terkoz’s affection with
her gentle touch and voice. Clearly, Terkoz was a fierce dog when aroused.
Barney Custer observed that Terkoz was “as savage as a lion when aroused,
and almost as formidable.” Brown, apparently an employee at the ranch,
warned one of the Greystoke guests to keep away from the wolfhound.
“He always has had a strange way with him in his likes
and dislikes, and he’s a might ugly customer to deal with when he’s crossed.
He’s killed one man already — a big Wamboli spearman who was stalking Greystoke
up in the north country last fall.”
When (in her dream) Victoria decided to search for Nu,
the primeval man of her dreams, she took Terkoz along as her tracker and
protector. After letting the dog smell Nu’s blood in the bushes near the
bungalow, she followed Terkoz’s lead toward the mountains across the plain.
The dog led her through the night, halting, “bristling and growling,”
before the entrance to a cave, where Victoria found the injured Nu. “With
difficulty she kept the growling wolfhound from his throat. Terkoz had
found the prey that he had tracked, and he could not understand why he
should not now be allowed to make the kill; but he was a well-trained beast,
and at last at the girl’s command he took up a position at the cave’s mouth
on guard.”
The next day (still in Victoria’s dream), Terkoz tried
to protect the girl when a half dozen Arabs cornered her. When the dog
leapt at the nearest Arab, a clubbed rifle came down on Terkoz’s skull,
leaving the wolfhound “a silent heap” on the ground. Later, after
the Arabs had made off with Victoria, a rescue party led by Barney Custer
found the “half-dead” Terkoz. Believing them the key to finding
Victoria, Barney had both Terkoz and the still unconscious Nu taken back
to Lord Greystoke’s home.
A few weeks later, after both dog and troglodyte recovered,
they
joined forces to search for Victoria. “The man depended almost solely
upon the upon the tell-tale evidences which his eyes could apprehend, leaving
the scent-spoor to the beast, for thus it had been his custom to hunt with
the savage wolfish progenitors of Terkoz a hundred thousand years before.”
Together they found and rescued Victoria.
However, Terkoz had a savage task to complete before Victoria’s
dream ended. William Curtiss, another Greystoke guest, had asked Victoria
to marry him. When Curtiss came upon the scene just after Nu and Terkoz
had rescued Victoria, he aimed his gun at Nu. Moments later, Victoria’s
brother discovered what happened next.
“Barney Custer broke through the tangled wall of verdure
upon a sight that took his breath away — the stretched dead body of William
Curtiss, his breast and throat torn by savage fangs. Across the clearing
a great wolfhound halted in its retreat at the sound of Barney’s approach.
It bared its bloody fangs in an ominous growl of warning, and then turned
and disappeared into the jungle.”
After waking from her swoon, Victoria Custer spoke to
her brother of Curtiss. “I could never love him now. I cannot tell you
why, but it may be that what I have lived through in those three minutes
revealed more then the dim and distant past. Terkoz has never liked him,
you know.”
Raja
Owner/Caretaker – David Innes
Pellucidar
Raja made his first appearance in Pellucidar
in a pack of “twenty huge wolf-dogs,” who were about to attack David
Innes. After his return to Pellucidar sometime in mid-1913, David’s travels
and adventures consumed an undetermined, but obviously lengthy, amount
of time before his first encounter with Raja. Awaking from sleep, David
noticed the wolf-dog pack a hundred yards away preparing to attack.
David had seen such beasts before. In Pellucidar they
were called jaloks. Abner Perry called them hyaenodons, the extinct creatures
of the outer world that “hunted in savage packs the great elk across
the snows of southern France, in the days when the mastodon roamed at will
over the broad continent.”
Fleeing in the direction of a cliff edge falling off to
the sea below, David was overtaken by the swiftest dog. “He leaped and
closed his massive jaws upon my shoulder,” David recalled. “The
momentum of his flying body, added to that of my own, carried the two of
us over the cliff. It was a hideous fall. The cliff was almost perpendicular.
At its foot broke the sea against a solid wall of rock. We struck the cliff-face
once in our descent and then plunged into the salt sea. With the impact
with the water the hyaenodon released his hold upon my shoulder.”
David was able to swim to a narrow beach, but the wolf-dog
suffered a broken leg in the fall and would have drowned had David not
rescued it. “The look of dumb misery in his eyes struck a chord in my
breast, for I love dogs,” David explained. “I forgot that he was
a vicious, primordial wolf-thing — a man-eater, a scourge, and a terror.
I saw only the sad eyes that looked like the eyes of Raja, my dead collie
of the outer world.” David swam out and pulled the dog to shore, where
he set the dog’s leg, bound it in splints, and bandaged it with torn remnants
from his own shirt. “Then I sat stroking the savage head and talking
to the beast in the man-dog talk with which you are familiar, if you ever
owned and loved a dog.”
When the hyaenodon was able to move around on three feet,
David was a bit unsure that his mercy had been a wise choice. However,
the wounded dog soon showed its gratitude when four men attacked David
while the man and the beast slept on the shore. The unseen dog awoke and
hurled itself like a “mass of demonical rage” upon the attackers.
He broke the neck of one with a “single-shake, terrier like” and
crushed the skull of another with a bite of its “fearsome” jaws.
The battle cemented the tie between the man and the wolf-dog.
“The hyaenodon walked around me a few times, and then
lay down at my side, his body touching mine. I laid my hand upon his head.
He did not move. Slowly I scratched about his ears and neck and down beneath
the fierce jaws. The only sign he gave was to raise his chin a trifle that
I might better caress him. That was enough! From that moment I have never
again felt suspicion of Raja, as I immediately named him. Somehow all sense
of loneliness vanished, too — I had a dog!”
In later adventures, David and Raja walked side by side
through Pellucidar’s lonesome landscape, enjoying each other’s company.
The man was concerned, though, about Raja’s reaction when they encountered
other men. When they came upon a solitary man, who fled as they approached,
David saw it as a perfect opportunity to test the dog’s loyalty to him.
He grabbed Raja by the neck to keep him from pursuing the man.
“One of us must be master, and logically I was the
one. He growled at me. I cuffed him sharply across the nose. He looked
at me for a moment in surprised bewilderment, and then he growled again.
I made another feint at him, expecting that it would bring him to my throat;
but instead he winced and crouched down. Raja was subdued! I stooped and
patted him. Then I took a piece of rope that constituted a part of my equipment
and made a leash for him. Thus we resumed our journey.”
When David felt the need for sleep, he did so with a sense
of security provided by Raja at his side. Eventually, though, he awoke
to see Raja’s eyes fixed on him. The dog them immediately arose and ran
into the jungle nearby. Although disappointed by Raja’s departure, David
realized that the hound was bound to leave him sooner or later.
Ranee
Owner/Caretaker – David Innes
Pellucidar
As time in Pellucidar can only be measured in pages, 66
of them later in Pellucidar, David came upon two large jaloks
— a male and a female. When he noticed the remnants of a rope about the
neck of the male, he walked toward them.
“As I did so the female crouched with bared fangs.
The male, however, leaped forward to meet me, not in deadly charge, but
with every expression of delight and joy, which the poor animal could exhibit.
It was Raja … There was no doubt that he was glad to see me. I now think
that his seeming desertion of me had been but due to a desire to search
out his ferocious mate and bring her, too, to live with me.”
At first, David had difficulty making friends with the
female. Raja helped by “growling savagely” at her when she bared
her fangs at David. As the trio walked along, the female trailed behind
David and Raja. “After a while she closed upon us,” David noticed,
“until she ran quite close to me and at Raja’s side. It was not long
before she seemed as easy in my company as did her lord and master.”
With Raja leading the way, the trio tracked down the Thurian
man who held Dian captive. After the two wolf-hounds attacked and killed
the Thurian, David had a difficult time making the two jaloks understand
that Dian was not to be harmed.
“I had an arm about Dian now. As Raja came close I
caught him by the neck and pulled him up to me. There I stroked him and
talked to him, bidding Dian do the same, until I think he pretty well understood
that if I was his friend, so was Dian. For a long time he was inclined
to be shy of her, often baring his teeth at her approach, and it was a
much longer time before the female made friends with us. But by careful
kindness by never eating without sharing our meat with them, and by feeding
them from our hands, we finally won the confidence of both animals.”
David named the female Ranee. He explained to Dian that
“Raja” was a title for a ruler on the outer Earth, and as “Ranee”
was the feminine form of that title, it was a natural name for the jalok’s
mate.
Eventually, the two humans and their two wolf-dogs came
upon and boarded the Amoz, a ship manned by Mezops aligned with David’s
inner earth empire. During a ceremony aboard the ship, Raja and Ranee made
their final appearances in the Pellucidar saga.
“Raja and Ranee had stood beside Dian and me. Their
bellies had been well filled, but still they had difficulty in permitting
so much edible humanity to pass unchallenged. It was a good education for
them though, and never after did they find it difficult to associate with
the human race without arousing their appetites.”
Nobs
Owner/Caretaker – Bowen Tyler/Tom Billings
The Land That Time Forgot
His full name was “Crown Prince Nobbler,” but Bowen
Tyler just called his Airedale “Nobs.” The dog made his first appearance
asleep at the feet of his master on the deck of a ship headed for France,
when a torpedo from a German submarine altered forever the domestic life
of the man and his dog. Both abandoned ship and climbed into a lifeboat.
When Bowen pulled a woman, Lys La Rue, out of the water to the safety of
the lifeboat, the seemingly gentle nature of the dog was revealed.
“Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into her lap,
and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and put her
cheek against his forehead. I have always admired Nobs; but this was the
first time it had ever occurred to me that I might wish to be Nobs. I wondered
how he would take it, for he is as unused to women as I. But he took to
it as a duck takes to water. What I lack of being a ladies’ man Nobs certainly
makes up for as a ladies’ dog. The old scalawag just closed his eyes and
put on one of the softest “sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth” expressions
you ever saw and stood there taking it and asking for more.”
Nobs had a fiercely violent side to his nature, however,
and it was first put on display when Bowen and the crewmen of an English
tug tried to take control of a German submarine. As Bowen fought with a
German sailor on the sub’s deck, Nobs’ great jaws ripped open the German’s
throat.
The Airedale shared Bowen and Lys’ adventures aboard the
commandeered sub until it made its way through a subterranean passage into
Caspak. When sea creatures swarmed the sub’s deck, Tyler thought that the
barking Nobs must have felt fear “for the first time since his littlest
puppyhood.” Later the crew killed one of the monsters, providing them
with fresh meat for the first time in weeks. Nobs was at the table for
his share.
“Nobs sat between the girl and me and was fed with
morsels of the Plesiosaurus steak, at the risk of forever contaminating
his manners. He looked at me sheepishly all the time, for he knew that
no well-bred dog should eat at table; but the poor fellow was so wasted
from improper food that I couldn’t enjoy my own meal had he been denied
an immediate share in it; and anyway Lys wanted to feed him.”
Nobs adapted to Caspak’s dangerous environment while accompanying
his master on hunting expeditions. He learned to eat raw meat and to be
wary of attacking powerful creatures they encountered. Eventually, Bowen
tasked Nobs with protecting Lys. When she fled to avoid capture by a native
man, Nobs protected her for a time. Then one day, he just disappeared.
Nobs would not appear again until almost a year later,
when Tom Billings entered Caspak in search of his friend, Bowen Tyler,
and Lys La Rue. When he entered a native village, Billings felt a dog sniffing
at his feet.
“Of a sudden a great brute leaped upon my back. As
I turned to thrust it aside before its fangs found a hold upon me, I beheld
a huge Airedale leaping frantically about me. The grinning jaws, the half-closed
eyes, the back-laid ears spoke to me louder than might the words of man
that here was no savage enemy but a joyous friend, and then I recognized
him, and fell to one knee and put my arms about his neck while he whined
and cried with joy. It was Nobs, dear old Nobs, Bowen Tyler’s Nobs, who
had loved me next to his master.”
The native owner of the dog spoke up. “He is unlike
any dog in Caspak, being kind and docile and yet a killer when aroused.
I would not part with him.” When Nobs would have followed Billings,
the native grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck. Nobs would have killed
the man had not Billings called him to heel. “For just an instant he
hesitated,” Billings noted, “standing there trembling and with bared
fangs, glaring at his foe; but he was well trained and had been out with
me quite as much as he had with Bowen — in fact, I had had most to do with
his early training; then he walked slowly and very stiff-legged to his
place behind me.” Nobs followed Billings to his village hut, where
they were attacked.
“As the six men leaped upon me, an angry growl burst
from behind them. I had forgotten Nobs. Like a demon of hate he sprang
among those Kro-lu fighting-men, tearing, rending, ripping with his long
tusks and his mighty jaws. They had me down in an instant, and it goes
without saying that the six of them could have kept there had it not been
for Nobs; but while I was struggling to throw them off, Nobs was springing
first upon one and then upon another of them until they were so put to
it to preserve their hides and their lives from him that they could give
me only a small part of their attention.”
After they escaped the village, Nobs protected the man
as they made their way northward through Caspak’s perilous terrain. “He
always was on the alert for dangerous foes, invariably warning me by low
growls of the approach of a large carnivorous animal long before I could
either see or hear it, and then when the thing appeared,
he would run snapping at its heels, drawing the charge away from me until
I found safety in some tree; yet never did the wily Nobs take an unnecessary
chance of a mauling. He would dart in and away so quickly that not even
the lightning like movements of the great cats could reach him.”
Billings’ search for Bowen Tyler eventually brought him
to a line of cliffs reaching 200 feet high and stretching out of sight
both to the east and the west without a visible break. “Nobs,” he
asked, “how the devil are we going to cross those cliffs?” He didn’t
expect an answer, of course, but he got one.
“I do not say that he understood me, even though I
realize that an Airedale is a mighty intelligent dog; but I do swear that
he seemed to understand me, for he wheeled about, barking joyously, and
trotted off toward the west; and when I didn’t follow him, he ran back
to me, barking furiously, and at last taking hold of the calf of my leg
in an effort to pull me along in the direction he wished me to go. Now,
as my legs were naked and Nobs’ jaws are much more powerful than he realizes,
I gave in and followed him.”
After Nobs located a pass through the cliffs, the man
and the dog continued their search northward. As they traveled, the two
hunted together. When Billings’ arrow lodged in a red deer, Nobs chased
down the stricken animal. The next day, the two came upon a herd of “magnificent”
horses. The man saw an opportunity for faster and more comfortable travel,
but was uncertain about how to capture one of the horses.
“How I wished for the collies from the ranch! At a
word they would have circled this little bunch and driven it straight down
to me; and then it flashed into my mind that Nobs had run with those collies
all one summer, that he had gone down to the pasture with them after the
cows every evening and done his part in driving them back to the milking-barn,
and had done it intelligently; but Nobs had never done the thing alone,
and it had been a year since he had done it at all. However, the chances
were more in favor of my foozling the long throw than that Nobs would fall
down in his part if I gave him the chance.
“Pointing the animals out to Nobs I whispered: ‘Fetch
‘em, boy!’ In an instant he was gone, circling wide toward the rear of
the quarry. They caught sight of him almost immediately and broke into
a trot away from him; but when they saw that he was apparently giving them
a wide berth they stopped again, though they stood watching him, with high-held
heads and quivering nostrils. It was a beautiful sight. And then Nobs turned
in behind them and trotted slowly back toward me. He did not bark, nor
come rushing down upon them, and when he had come closer to them, he proceeded
at a walk. The splendid creatures seemed more curious than fearful, making
no effort to escape until Nobs was quite close to them.”
Intelligent enough to know he couldn’t drive the entire
herd back toward the man, Nobs selected out a stallion and through a long
and tiring process, finally directed it back toward Billings, who was able
to rope the horse. “Rearing and struggling, he fought for his liberty,
while Nobs, panting and with lolling tongue, came and threw himself down
near me. He seemed to know that his work was done and that he had earned
his rest.” After taming the stallion, Billings named him Ace. “I
think he soon learned to love me,” the man noted, “and I know that
I loved him; while he and Nobs were the best of pals.”
Eventually they found Bowen Tyler, who was reunited with
his dog. “The reunion between Bowen and Nobs was marked by a frantic
display upon Nobs’ part, which almost stripped Bowen of the scanty attire
that the Galu custom had vouchsafed him.” In their last scene in Caspak,
Bowen and Nobs marched southward toward a rendezvous with the Toreador,
the ship that brought Tom Billings to the island and would take Tyler and
his Airedale back to civilization.
Za
Owner/Caretaker – Tarzan
Tarzan and the Golden Lion
During Tarzan, Jane, and their son’s long journey home
from Pal-ul-don in the opening pages of Tarzan and the Golden Lion,
they came upon and adopted an orphaned lion cub that Tarzan named Jad-bal-ja.
That same day, the Greystokes entered a village of friendly natives. As
Tarzan palavered with the chief, his eyes “alighted upon a large bitch
among the numerous curs that overran the huts and the street. Her udder
was swollen with milk and the sight of it suggested a plan to Tarzan.”
He offered to buy the dog, but the chief demurred. “She
is yours, Bwana, without payment,” he replied. “She whelped two
days since and last night her pups were all stolen from her nest, doubtless
by a great snake; but if you will accept them I will give you instead as
many young and fatter dogs as you wish, for I am sure that this one would
prove poor eating.”
Tarzan explained he did not wish to eat the dog but rather
intended to have her provide milk for the lion cub he had adopted. The
dog was caught and dragged to Tarzan by a thong around its neck. At first
the strange scent of the white man caused the dog to “snarl and snap
at its new master.” The ape-man’s strange influence over animals soon
calmed the dog. “At length he won the animal’s confidence so that it
lay quietly beside him while he stroked its head.” Getting the lion
and the dog to accept each other, though, was a much more difficult process,
as each was terrified by the scent of the other.
“It required patience — infinite patience—but at last
the thing was an accomplished fact and the cur bitch suckled the son of
Numa. Hunger had succeeded in overcoming the natural suspicion of the lion,
while the firm yet kindly attitude of the ape-man had won the confidence
of the canine, which had been accustomed through life to more of cuffs
and kicks than kindness.”
The next morning, the Greystokes continued their homeward
journey with the dog trotting beside them on a leash. “The bitch they
called Za, meaning girl,” Burroughs noted. “The second day they
removed her leash and she followed them willingly through the jungle, nor
ever after did she seek to leave them, nor was happy unless she was near
one of them.”
When they arrived home, “the golden lion and his foster
mother occupied a corner of the ape-man’s bedroom.” That was the final
mention of Za in the Tarzan stories. When he was weaned off of the dog’s
milk, Jad-bal-ja was moved to a cage behind the bungalow, while Za probably
joined the menagerie of dogs that were allowed to live and run free on
the Greystoke estate.
Lonay
Owner/Caretaker – The Vulture
The Moon Maid
In the 25th century, the clans
of Julian the 20th were desert people. For a hundred years, the Americans
had lived in the arid country, gazing down on the fertile land to the west
which remained the last stronghold of the enemy they had driven across
the continent after the invaders had conquered the Earth 400 years earlier.
As the Americans readied themselves for the final assault on the invaders’
descendants, an overview revealed that dogs played an important role in
their social and military life. They first appeared when Julian 20th led
some of his warriors in an spirited ride into their own camp.
“Presently, in a wild charge, whooping and brandishing
our spears, we charged down among the tents. Dogs, children, and slaves
scampered for safety, the dogs barking, the children and the slaves yelling
and laughing. As we swung ourselves from our mounts before our tents, slaves
rushed out to seize our bridle reins, the dogs leaped, growling, upon us
in exuberant welcome.”
Later, while Julian and his mother and two sisters lay
talking in their tent, “two or three of our great shaggy hounds came
in and sprawled among us.” These large hounds were “bred to protect
our flocks from coyote and wolf, hellhound and lion,” Julian explained,
“and quite capable of doing it, too.”
Each of the Americans’ 50 clans had its own hounds to
protect its herds from attack. When in camp, the hounds futilely chased
rabbits or fought among themselves, but when on the march they worked with
“tireless efficiency and a minimum of wasted effort.” Fully 2,000
of them were in base camp when all the clans gathered together for the
coming march against the Kalkars. The hound-chief of each clan had a pack
leader of his hounds. Usually the pack leader was an experienced hound
owned by the hound-chief. The pack leader was trained to direct the hounds
in his pack with little guidance from the hound-chief.
The Vulture was the hound-chief of Julian’s clan and “old
Lonay” was his pack-leader. When the clan was on the move, The Vulture
deployed half of his 50 hounds at intervals around the herds of cattle
and sheep, while Lonay led the other 25 at the end of the column. When
there was an attack on the herd, a high-pitched yelp from one of the sentry
hounds brought Lonay and his reserve pack to the point of attack. During
a massive assault, Lonay’s leadership was critical.
“Sometimes there will be a sudden rush of coyotes,
wolves and hellhounds simultaneously from two or three points, and then
the discipline and intelligence of old Lonay and his pack merit the affection
and regard in which we hold these great, shaggy beasts. Whirling rapidly
two or three times, Lonay emits a series of deep-throated growls and barks,
and instantly the pack splits into two or three or more units, each of
which races to a different point of trouble. If at any point they are outnumbered
and the safety of the herd imperiled, they set up a great wailing which
is the signal that they need the help of warriors, a signal that never
goes unheeded. In similar cases, or in the hunt, the hounds of other packs
will come to the rescue, and all will work together harmoniously.”
Rahna
Owner/Caretaker – O-aa
Savage Pellucidar
In the last part of his last Pellucidar
book, Edgar Rice Burroughs created his last named dog. Like Raja and Ranee
in the author’s second Pellucidar book years before, Rahna was a jalok,
a fierce wolfdog of the inner world. In Savage Pellucidar,
Burroughs provided a detailed description of a jalok.
“The jalok is a big, shaggy hyaenodon, with a body
as large as a leopard’s but with longer legs. Jaloks usually hunt in packs,
and not even the largest and fiercest of animals is safe from attack. They
are without fear, and they are always hungry … Sometimes jaloks were tamed,
but they were never domesticated.”
Young O-aa, the daughter of a primitive king, was alone
on an island when she came face-to-face with a jalok. She expected it to
charge, but instead it lay down and lowered its head on its front legs
and watched her. When O-aa decided to try walking away, the jalok followed
her a half-mile down toward the sea. Finally, O-aa decided to turn and
have it out with the beast. She drew her knife, only to see the jalok move
toward her, wagging his tail. “That has meant the same thing in the
dog family from the Cretaceous age to the present day,” Burroughs observed,
“on the outer crust or in the Inner World at the earth’s core.”
“O-aa sheathed her knife and waited. The jalok came
close and looked up into her face, and O-aa placed a hand upon its head
and scratched it behind an ear. The great beast licked her hand, and when
O-aa started down toward the sea again, it walked at her side, brushing
against her. Not since she had lost Hodon had O-aa felt so safe. She tangled
her fingers in the shaggy collar that ringed the jalok’s neck, as though
she would never let him go again … now she had both a friend and a protector.”
Down on the shore, O-aa found a canoe left by the wolf
dog’s former master. “The jalok lay at her feet. She ruffled his shaggy
mane with a sandaled foot, and he looked up at her and bared his fangs
in a canine grin—terrible fangs set in mighty jaws that could tear her
to pieces in a moment … she dropped to her knees and put both arms around
his shaggy collar and hugged him. Doubtless, this was something new in
the jalok’s life; but he seemed to understand and like it, for he bared
his fangs in a grin and licked the girl’s face.”
After the jalok killed a deer and helped O-aa drag
it to the canoe, she realized that the dog was a well trained hunting animal
that had worked with and for his dead master.”
After the girl and the jalok sailed to the mainland, O-aa decided to give
the beast a name. “Rahna,” she finally said. “That is a good
name for you, Rahna.” (“Killer”)
Rahna remained at O-aa’s side, protecting her from men
and other beasts who would have done her harm until the girl was reunited
with her mate, Ho-don the Fleet One. The hyaenodon accompanied them to
a rendezvous with David Innes, and then on a nearly 2,500-mile march across
the face of Pellucidar to their home in Sari.
—the end—
.
.
