Niagara Falls Souvenir Dog And Turtle Statues *SOLD*

Here is one incredibly odd and rare pairing– A souvenir Dog and Turtle state.  Why would these be paired and have an accompanying Niagara Falls dog statue?

Well…. we had to go back to the 1920’s to understand the history.  Based on book Anthology and Bibliography of Niagara Falls , 1921  there was a troublesome female bull-terrier that was put in a coffee sack , “by a couple of men whe determined to get rid of her, and thrown off the middle of Goat Island bridge.  In the following spring she was found alive and well about sixty rods below the Ferry, having lived through the winter on a deceased cow that was thrown over the bank at the previous fall.  Then In 1858 another dog, a male of the same breed, was thrown into the rapids, also in the middle fo the bridge.  In less than an hour he came up the Ferry stairs wet and not at all gay”  Truth (likely) is stranger than fiction!

As to the turtle, Wikipedia states– “George Stathakis, a Greek immigrant working as a chef in Buffalo, New York, went over the falls in a barrel. Upon impact, the barrel was stuck behind a curtain of water and could not be recovered for 18 hours. Stathakis had an air supply of up to eight hours – although he had survived the initial fall, he died of suffocation. Stathakis took the plunge with his pet turtle, which was said to be around 150 years old. The turtle survived the ordeal.”

So here we present an incredibly odd story behind two unique cast dog figures & one turtle base.  Niagara Falls history at its strangest!

The base is a solid marble like pedestal and each statue is affixed with a vintage straight slot screw.