Bobbie the Wonder Dog

The Braziers drove east from Silverton, Oregon in August 1923 with the dog in the car. At a filling station in Wolcott, Indiana he was set on by three local dogs, ran, and was gone. They drove the streets sounding the horn he answered to, advertised, and eventually went home without him, about 2,550 miles away. Six months later, on 15 February 1924, he walked into the family's restaurant in Silverton. His feet were worn through to the bone, his coat was matted and his weight was down, but he knew the room. The story got into the papers and letters came in from people along the route who had fed him or put him up for a night — enough of them, with dates, that the Oregon Humane Society reconstructed the journey: across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming, over the Rockies in winter, into Idaho and home. He had swum rivers and crossed the continental divide twice. He was given a jewelled collar and harness, the keys to several cities, a bungalow of his own at the Portland home show, and a part playing himself in a silent film. He died in 1927 and was buried at the Oregon Humane Society's pet cemetery; Rin Tin Tin laid the wreath.

Loved by · Frank Brazier

Honours

• 1924Walked about 2,551 miles home from Wolcott, Indiana, arriving 15 February
• 1924Route reconstructed and verified from letters sent by people who fed him along the way
• 1924Given the keys to several cities, a jewelled harness, and a part playing himself on film
• 1927Rin Tin Tin laid the wreath at his grave

Their kind

The old farm collie of Scotland, bred to think for itself at a distance from the shepherd — the trait that reads as uncanny when one turns up on a doorstep it has never seen.

A life in seasons