Dog Stars of Television & Social Media Quiz

Answer: Old English sheepdog

The paint company first introduced an Old English sheepdog to its advertising in 1961. From then, several generations of dogs appeared, each carefully chosen for a likeness to its predecessor.

So synonymous with the company did the breed become that any Old English Sheepdog tended to be referred to colloquially as a "Dulux Dog".

Answer: Chihuahua

The restaurant company introduced a Chihuahua called Gidget as its mascot in 1997, but it was dropped in 2000.

Unlike the UK's long-lasting paint company dog, Gidget did not really increase sales. In 2003, Gidget had a role in the movie "Legally Blonde".

Answer: Golden retriever

The antics of Charlie and his canine companions Herbie, Daisy, Buddy and Oliver were the stars of social media channels run by their owner Alicia Dixon in Ohio. The canine family included three golden retrievers and two Landseer Newfoundlands.
Dixon first started posting their antics - and that of "sassy cat" - on Instagram when Charlie was a puppy (he was born in 2017).

In 2023, "Forbes" magazine and other sources estimated Charlie's worth at $5M.

Answer: White bull terrier

Several dogs called Bullseye advertised Target over the years. Make-up was used to mark the real company logo.

Answer: Black Labrador retriever

King Clarence was a pedigree black Labrador retriever who lived with his "hoomans", 'Dadimar Putin' and 'Kim Jung Mom'.

Most of the clips on social media featured King Clarence looking into a camera and complaining about the activities of his owners in a computer-generated voice - although he was generally at fault for chewing things and ripping up cushions.
"Free Clarence!" was often used as a sign-off line.

Answer: Chocolate Labrador retriever

With more than six million followers on social media, Ollie was a star of many adventures and was said to be worth millions.
Unlike King Clarence, Ollie was rarely destructive and most of his adventures were of a feel-good nature, including Ollie dressing up to visit the ducks in a local pond, or his kindly human neighbour Nanny Biscuits.

Contra-references to each other appeared in Ollie and King Clarence clips. In later years, Olle was joined by a 'brother', a yellow lab called Tato.

Answer: Greyhound

The first live Lady appeared in Greyhound bus company commercials in 1957. Lady was a star in her own right, often making personal appearance at events across America.

Answer: Boxer

Layla was a boxer and Luna an Australian shepherd mix in the adventures filmed by their 'mom', Samantha Copley, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Their skits took hours of work to set up and Copley used rewards to get the dogs to react in a humorous way to the camera. If you've never seen a dog using a computer, then you need to check out "Layla The Boxer".

Answer: Border collie

More than half-a-million viewers tuned in to the regular social media adventures of Casper, the talking dog, and his friends.

The clips generally showed the dogs 'talking' to their owner, Ryan Dykta, who put on different voices for each. Casper was a rescue dog that Ryan, a probation officer in real life, found tied up at a farm.

The dogs generally got up to shenanigans, with Casper often blaming herds of rampaging Rhinoceroses for the mayhem he caused.

Answer: Basset hound

Colombo tried to come up with names for his Basset hound, but eventually restored to calling him "Dog".

Despite the obvious affection Lt Colombo had for the dog, actor Peter Falk was initially reluctant. Studio bosses were also said to be against the idea, wanting Colombo to have a human sidekick, but writer Steven Bocho created Dog just to spite them.

Answer: Yorkshire terrier

Rajesh Koothrappali (played by Kunal Nayyar) was one of the key characters in the smash hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory". But in early shows Raj had a problem, he could not speak to women unless he drank alcohol.
In one of his (many) between girlfriend periods, his friends Howard and Bernadette gave him a dog, Cinnamon.

Cinnamon first appeared in season five and again off and on until the finale show in season 12.

Answer: German shepherd

First broadcast in Canada in 2019, several seasons of the hit show followed. It featured John Reardon as a detective based in Newfoundland who became partnered with a police K-9, Rex.
Rex was played by Diesel vom Burgimwald, although occasionally he had stunt doubles, his nephews Iko and Izzy.

The Canadian show was based on the Austrian-Italian production originally known as "Kommissar Rex" and set in Vienna.

Answer: Yellow Labrador retriever

In the first 50 years of the advertising campaign, more than 120 commercials featuring delightfully cheeky Labrador retrievers were made. In all, over 100 pups featured.
Coincidentally, or maybe not, the company concerned was for many years the top-selling lavatory roll maker in the UK.

Fun fact: In the USA alone over 30 million trees are felled each year just to make toilet paper.

Answer: Jack Russell terrier

Eddie was the companion of Martin Crane, father of the the radio psychiatrist Frasier Crane. Eddie appeared for 11 years and was played by two dogs on the show, Moose and later Moose's son Enzio.

Answer: Cairn terrier

Audrey was originally a stray that was adopted by one of the families. She was a part of the storylines for 10 years from 2001 until her dog actor died. In one remarkable plot line, after her owners moved to Adelaide, Audrey walked back to her former home in Melbourne - that's a distance of 721 kilometres (488 miles.).

(According to a certain internet search engine, that would take a human 163 hours, but as all dog owners know, an extra 50 per cent would be needed for walking with a dog that has to stop and sniff every 10 yards.)