In Lassie Come Home, the first in the series of Lassie films, Lassie licked the face of child star Roddy McDowall because studio prop men had put ice cream on the boy's cheek.

Gidget is the real name of the Taco Bell dog.

Laikia, a dog, was the world's first ever space astronaut. She was sent into space in an artificial earth satellite in 1957 by the Russian government.

Survivors of the Titanic included two dogs: a Pekingese belonging to Henry Sleeper Harper and a Pomeranian belonging to Miss Margaret Hays.

Morris the Cat of the 9 Lives Cat Food commercials actually had three lives. There were three different cats, all rescued from shelters, who played Morris.

Just about everyone knows Scooby Doo, but do you know his breed? He is, in fact, a Great Dane.

The nation's first canine movie star was Rin Tin Tin.

There have been many cats in the White House, the very first of which was Abraham Lincoln's cat Tabby.

Kubla Khan owned the greatest number of dogs ever to be owned by one person -- a whopping 5000 mastiffs!

Lord Byron, the English Romantic poet, had a beloved Newfoundland named Boatswain. When Boatswain died, Byron had the following inscribed upon his gravestone: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."

At his Key West, Florida home, Ernest Hemingway was famous for keeping cats, lots of them, and many of which had six toes on their front paws!