Two Dog Tales

As the college football bowl games wind down this week, I was curious about how many colleges have a dog as their mascot.

Animals abound in college sports, from Gators to Tigers to Longhorns to Lions.

And there are some with questionable animal mascots, for example, tonight’s Sugar Bowl pitting the Virginia Tech Hokies against the Michigan Wolverines. (Read how the school’s original turkey mascot evolved into the Hokie Bird.)

I did a Google search on schools with a dog as the mascot, and according to Dogtime.com, they only came up with 13.

But their list left out some big ones, namely the University of Connecticut and University of Washington Huskies. So I did some more sleuthing.

One of the most widely recognized dog mascots is the English bulldog of the Georgetown Hoyas. They are also one of the few schools that has a live mascot, Jack, a 10-year-old bulldog who lives on campus and has his own web page.

Another relatively local school fronted by a bulldog is James Madison University.

And the University of Georgia’s Uga is so famous there’s a book chronicling the 46-year history of the mascot, “Damn Good Dogs!”

In fact, bulldogs appear to be the most popular dog mascot.

The Wikipedia page “List of bulldog mascots” lists 41 universities in addition to Georgetown that are represented by a bulldog. Not to mention a plethora of other sports, including hockey, rugby, soccer and lacrosse teams around the world.

But the best bowl game for dog mascot fans has got to be this coming Sunday.

On January 8, at 8 p.m. the Northern Illinois Huskies will take on the Arkansas State Red Wolves in the Godaddy.com Bowl in Mobile, Ala.