I was wondering if the extremely rich people got to take their dogs along with them on the Titanic. That part of the movie stuck out in my mind because my dog is exactly like the little black one. I was just wondering if this part was factual. ;)

-- Nikki (n_carr@hotmail.com), January 08, 1998

Answers

Response to dog

I believe they did, which would stand to reason. They could do about anything they wanted to. I seem to recall a pekinese (spelling?) being mentioned in some of the accounts and belonging to one of the more prominent first class passengers but I can't remember which one.

-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), January 08, 1998.

Response to dog

Nikki:

There were a number of dogs on board the Titanic; most notably John Jacob Astor's Airedale, named Kitty. The Titanic had a kennel and even detailed a crew member to walk the dogs around the fantail (third class space, of course) each day. There were so many dogs on board, in fact, that an informal dog show was planned for Monday, April 15 (the day the ship sank).

Only two dogs survived the sinking: Henry Sleeper Harper's Pekinese, Sun Yat Sen, in boat number 3, and Margarate Hayes's Pomeranian, in boat 7. Both these boats left the ship early, and with so few people on board them that no one objected.

After the last lifeboat left the ship, a passenger went to the kennels and released all the dogs. After the sinking, passenger R. Norris Williams, came face to face with a French bulldog while swimming in the debris. He thought the freezing water had caused him to hallucinate it!

Cheers!

-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), January 08, 1998.

Response to dog

Yes, the rich people really did get to take their dogs...the french bulldog was actually owned by a passenger on the Titanic. The owner survived and later filed a claim for $750.00 for loss of the dog. I found this on a website although I'm sorry I can't remember the name. I think it's Mark's Titanic page or something of that nature. Enter Titanic from the Yahoo search engine and you should be able to find something.

-- Tiffany (mactiff@feist.com), January 10, 1998.

There were 3 dogs that actually survived. They belonged to:

Elizabeth Rothschild Margaret Hays Henry Harper

Margaret's dog "Lady" died in 1921 I believe.

Some believe that Elizabeth's dog was attacked and killed by a bigger dog after the sinking.

It is not known what happened to Henry Harper's dog "Sun Yat Sen"

Andrew M.

-- Andrew Joseph Marcel Maheux (andymaheux86_@hotmail.com), March 17, 2003.

yeah, they had 9, i think. 2 or 3 survived, i believe. There was also a Cat(Ship's cat) and 2 canaries. 1 bird survived, the cat didnt.

-- Kasai (kasaikiree@yahoo.com), July 07, 2003.

Please see http://www.martycrisp.com/dogs_of_the_titanic.htm as the site details the 12 dogs on the Titanic, their owners and what became of the dog and owner. Passage for a dog was very expensive (about 1/2 the adult rate or the same as a ticket for a child), so only the wealthiest passengers could afford to bring them along. Three dogs, the Peke and 2 Pomeranians (all toy breeds easily tucked into clothing) did survive in lifeboats w/ their owners. The ship had kennels, however their exact location is still not certain as many feel they were moved after the final set of blueprints was drawn.

There was a hoax story published in the papers at the time about a dog named "Rigel" (usually said to be a Newfoundland, sometimes also said to be First Officer Murdoch's dog) that swam about and saved passengers. The story is a complete hoax, but you still see it all over the place even today. The Rigel story was an "eye witness" account of a crewman on the Carpathia- however it was later discovered the man was never a crewman, so he never saw anything, he just made up a story and sold it to the papers to make a buck. There is also a hoax story that Bruce Ismay had an Irish Setter "White Star" along with him. You also see hoaxes about cows on the ship- milk yes, cows no LOL!

There was a ship's cat named Jenny, who apparently had just had kittens and they did not survive. The cargo manifest lists 4 hens and 30 cockerels, who were all lost. The canary surviving story is true- sort of! There was a canary, however it only crossed the channel and disembarked in Cherbourg, so it was not on board when the ship sank. White Star charged a 5 shilling fee to transport the canary.

-- Susan Hiller (papillon8@comcast.net), March 27, 2004.