Dogs on the Mayflower?

Yeah, I know. We should have posted this yesterday.

But did you know there were dogs aboard the Mayflower? (Why is the associated smell the first thought that comes to my mind?)

I got to thinking about the Mayflower dogs this week since I've been reading Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War in which author Nathaniel Philbrick mentions the dogs early on. 

From the opening pages of the book:

     For 65 days, the Mayflower had blundered her way through   storms and headwinds, her bottom a shaggy pelt of seaweed and barnacles, her leaky decks spewing salt water onto her passengers' devoted heads. There were 102 of them -- 104 if you counted the two dogs: a spaniel and a giant, slobbery mastiff.

According to an article at ancestry.com (thanks to Horst Hoefinger over at Dogster for the link) there are records of at least two dogs that participated in the settling of Plymouth Colony:

(Edward Winslow, writing in 1622) tells us a mastiff and a spaniel were involved in the first explorations of discovery on Cape Cod and activities of homebuilding during the first winter ashore. Although there may have been other pets aboard Mayflower during her historic voyage, they are not mentioned. ...

So there you go. It's belated, but we hope you all had a wonderful holiday!