A Girl and Her Dog Trivia Quiz

Answer: Toto

"I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" The 'little dog' to whom the Wicked Witch of the West is referring is, of course, Toto, Dorothy's faithful terrier. In L Frank Baum's 'Oz' books, Toto is a fluffy little terrier of unspecified breed, though the art in the earlier books suggest that he is either a Cairn (like the film version, played by a female Cairn terrier called Terry) or a Yorkshire terrier.

In some of the books, he is a Boston terrier, a completely different breed. Miss Gulch, Dorothy's horrible neighbour (who, like the Wicked Witch of the West, is played by Margaret Hamilton), tries to have him put down but Dorothy rescues him, and he accompanies her in her travels through Oz.

In 'Tik-Tok of Oz', Toto gains the ability to speak, just lke other animals who enter the Land of Oz (anyone who's seen 'Return to Oz' might remember Dorothy's hen Billina talking while in Oz).

Answer: Rufus

Joey Bettany - later Maynard - is the heroine of Elinor M Brent-Dyer's 'Chalet School' series, and Rufus is her Saint Bernard dog, who first appears in 'Jo of the Chalet School'. His mother Zita belongs to a Tyrolean peasant family who can no longer afford to keep her and her puppies, and are planning on shooting her and drowning the puppies, but Joey and Eigen, the school cook's little brother, rescue the puppy from a watery grave and Joey and her sister Madge adopt him.

He grows up to be a skilled tracker and guard dog, and Joey uses his skills to help find various girls who have gone missing.

He also protects Joey and her family from burglars in 'Jo to the Rescue'. The two are briefly separated after Joey has to escape from the Nazis, but are reunited after the father of one of the Chalet School girls has him flown across Europe and put into quarantine.

After Rufus dies, Joey gets a new Saint Bernard puppy as a gift from the school, and names him Bruno.

Answer: Timmy

George is one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five, along with her cousins Julian, Dick and Anne, and her dog Timmy. Her real name is Georgina, but she is a tomboy and prefers to be called George, and is the complete opposite of the more feminine and timid Anne. George's parents, Fanny (Franny or Frances in modern editions) and Quentin, own Kirrin Island and several of the 'Famous Five' stories are set there. Timmy is a large, hairy brown mongrel, who George adopted after finding him abandoned on a moor as a puppy.

The two are very close and George gets angry when people insult or attack Timmy. Timmy acts as a guard dog for the children, often helping them out when they're in trouble, and George takes him to school with her after her parents allow her to keep him.

Answer: Mr Tadakichi

Chiyo Mihama, or 'Chiyo-chan' to her friends, is a Japanese child prodigy and one of the group of friends in 'Azumanga Daioh', a slice-of-life manga by Kiyohiko Azuma. Because of her intelligence, she is in a class with girls older than her. She comes from a rich background and owns Mr Tadakichi (Tadakichi-san in the original Japanese), a large and friendly Great Pyrenees dog. Chiyo sometimes rides on him, due to her small size. Sakaki, the biggest and quietest girl in the group, is an animal lover and adores Mr Tadakichi, especially as he's one of the only animals who doesn't attack her (there is a running gag about her being bitten by neighbourhood cats), and secretly wishes she could ride on him.

Answer: Clifford

Emily Elizabeth's dog, Clifford, is also known as Clifford the Big Red Dog. Clifford is a giant red mutt with a resemblance to a Labrador retriever and the star of a series of books by Norman Bridwell, who named the giant pooch after his wife's imaginary friend and Clifford's young owner after his own daughter. Clifford lives in New York City with Emily Elizabeth and can change his size.

He is also the mascot of Scholastic Books. A TV series based on the books was released in 2000; one major difference in the depictions is that while Clifford acts like a normal dog in the books, the TV version can talk and has a group of doggy friends. Emily Elizabeth has no surname in the books, but in the TV series her surname is Howard.

Answer: Togo

The 'Nancy Drew' books have been written by several ghostwriters over the years under the name of Carolyn Keene - the most prominent of these being Mildred Wirt Benson - and has changed outfits and looks over the years, as well as adapting to various cultural norms. Togo was first introduced in 'The Whispering Statue' and became a mainstay of the books after that, often helping Nancy in her work.

She first encounters him stealing a woman's handbag and dumping it in a pond, and later decides to keep him as he is a stray.

He is named after the lead husky in the team that carried diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska, in 1925. In the games, Togo is a bulldog.

Answer: Georgette

Jenny Foxworth is a rich young girl who appears in 'Oliver & Company', a Disney movie based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist'. Like Mr Brownlow in the book, she adopts Oliver, a little ginger kitten. Unfortunately, Oliver has to compete with Georgette, Jenny's spoiled poodle (voiced by Bette Midler), who resents Oliver and having to share a home and food with him. Fagin, a vagrant who lives on a boat and owns a gang of dogs, kidnaps Oliver and holds him to ransom, but has a change of heart when he realises that Oliver's rich new owner is a child. Georgette joins forces with Fagin's dogs to get Jenny back when she is kidnapped by Bill Sykes, a vicious loan shark, and ends up befriending Oliver and the gang, though she does not return Tito the chihuahua's crush on her.

Answer: Heloïse

Dodie Smith is best known for another book featuring dogs, '101 Dalmatians', but 'I Capture the Castle' is one of her other notable books. Heloïse is a white bull terrier belonging to Cassandra Mortmain, the teenage heroine and narrator of the book, and her eccentric family.

Heloïse is named after the French nun; the Mortmains' ginger cat, Abelard, is named after her lover, Peter Abélard. The Mortmains call them 'Ab' and 'Hel' for short; at one point, the shadow of Simon Cotton, one of the rich new owners of the nearby Scoatney Hall, appears on the wall and looks like the Devil, and Cassandra adds to the effect by shouting 'Hel, Hel' after Heloïse knocks over a clotheshorse. Cassandra takes Heloïse to London with her when she visits her sister Rose, and Heloïse later scares away a man who is following them.

Answer: Cujo

Charity Camber is the original owner of the notorious rabid Saint Bernard in the Stephen King book of the same name. Cujo catches rabies while chasing a rabbit, after a rabid bat bites his nose. Charity and her son Brett go to Connecticut to visit her sister, while Cujo stays home and kills both her husband and their neighbour. Donna Trenton, a middle-class woman who has recently moved to Castle Rock, and her son Tad are trapped in the car for ages when Cujo menaces them, and Tad ends up dying from heatstroke. Chairty later gets a new puppy called Willie and has him vaccinated.

A film version was made in 1983. The movie Cujo was actually played by a mixture of dogs - four Saint Bernards, a rottweiler, a black Labrador/great Dane cross, some mechanical dogs and even a man in a costume.

The Saint Bernards playing him in the film also had to have their tails taped down, as they were constantly wagging!

Answer: Sandy

The perky red-haired orphan began life as a character in a newspaper strip in 1924, before becoming the star of the musical 'Annie'. Sandy, a dog of unknown breed, first appeared in 1925 as a puppy when Annie rescued him from a group of cruel boys. She temporarily gave him to Paddy Lynch, a steak joint owner who she knows can give Sandy a good home, but he returned a few months later as a fully grown dog, defending Annie from a gang of gypsies, and became her companion after that.

The strip ended its run in 2010, though Annie and her guardian Daddy Warbucks later appeared in 'Dick Tracy' strips.

In the musical, Annie meets Sandy while running away from the orphanage and saves him from a dog catcher.