Talk:Bobbie the Wonder Dog

Cleanup
I cleaned up the page and wikified it. I tried to remove the small town newspaper feel and make it more encyclopaedic. bDerrly 00:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

How Bobbie did it
I feel the story is a significant (albeit quirky) part of Oregon lore, and deserving of a page. I visited Bobbie's grave during a grade-school field trip to the Oregon Humane Society in the early 1960s, as I am sure thousands of other local children have.

The owner's account is very informative, and explains away much of the mystery the tale has acquired in the retelling, particularly to children, when an almost supernatural sixth sense is attributed to dogs. Bobbie was a farm dog, experienced in exploring the outdoors and encountering other animals, intelligent, strong, and in his prime years. The trip from Oregon to Indiana was a low-speed voyage, as motor trips necessarily were in that era, and the dog actually traveled on the auto's running board, where he was exposed to all the scents and sounds along their journey, and allowed frequent opportunities to explore the localities and terrain along the way. On his return voyage, Bobbie found and visited homes where his family had stayed on their trip, as the family learned from accounts received by mail. So, while still an amazing story of harrowing survival across the forbidding territory of the vast American West, and of canine loyalty, persistence and instinct (particularly olfactory sense), the story is far less incredible when one realizes Bobbie had ample opportunity to learn well the route taken, and was therefore able to retrace his steps. Later-day events where pet dogs have found their way home after freeway travel or even trips by air are closer to freak occurrences. Jeffreykopp 13:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for explaining this, b/c I couldn't fathom how the dog did it. This info should be in the body of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.138.92.245 (talk) 06:00, 30 September 2020 (UTC)


 * If you can find sources for some of the details you mentioned above, please add them to the article. This version of the article was mostly written by the author of one of the books about Bobbie and could use a different perspective. Thanks! Katr67 14:57, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it's basically a summary of the external link (a Web-excerpt of Bobbie—The Wonder Dog Of Oregon By G. F. Brazier, Silverton, Oregon from "Animal Pals", edited By Curtis Wager-Smith, 1924, which I inadequately cited as "the owner's account"), with my personal interpretation (i.e., non-encylcopedic). So it's here in Talk, mostly to support retention of the article, and to point out it's not a freak story or urban legend (though a second source would be needed to properly assert this in the article). Hopefully someone more expert can work some of it into the article. (There must be an old-timer at the Ore. Humane Soc. who has second-generation knowledge of the story.) As 1924 is P.D. (just under the wire), if someone has or checks out a copy of the book to verify the text found at that link, it could be freely quoted at length. Jeffreykopp 05:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of the movie Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Jason McHuff 04:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)


 * If I recall correctly, Bobbie was one of the bigger influences of Homeward Bound. Ryoga-2003 (talk) 09:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved to Silverton Bobbie, per discussion below. - GTBacchus(talk) 04:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Bobbie, the Wonder Dog → — The comma isn't really necessary and isn't generally used in accounts of this dog. Other "wonder dogs" do not use the comma. Esprqii (talk) 18:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Leave as is There is no compelling reason to remove the comma. There appears to be inadequate usage of this title.  The title "Silverton Bobbie" is at least used in secondary sources.  The index of the Oregon Historical Society's quarterly for 1981-2000 did not index this dog.  I guess there were no articles about him for that time period.  --Bejnar (talk) 21:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment My suggested move is purely related to WP:MOS, not how the name is used in the media. We have already Jim the Wonder Dog and Ace the Wonder Dog (no commas), not to mention other non-comma-using animal names like Fred the Undercover Kitty and Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. A move to plain old Bobbie (though I see there already is an article about a dog named Bobbie) or Silverton Bobbie is also fine. --Esprqii (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I would gladly support a move to "Silverton Bobbie". --Bejnar (talk) 22:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


 * A more recent discussion reached a different consensus than above. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon/Archive 16.  —EncMstr (talk) 02:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Edits done incorrectly, I'll see what I can do
I see that a Susan Stelljes made a number of changes to the article, in incorrect format and without citing sources. I happen to know her and I believe she just doesn't know how to edit Wikipedia. I'll talk to her, see if she has sources, and fix her corrections one way or the other. Sylvia A (talk) 22:24, 26 May 2019 (UTC)