My son’s favorite ancestor: Chief, the fire dog

A few years ago, my son Alex was asked to talk about his favorite ancestor at school.

I was so excited! Who would he choose? The great-grandmother who was the first elected female sheriff in the United States? An uncle we know as a hero of the Great Johnstown Flood? One of several great grandfathers who served in World War II? No, no, and no.

Alex chose a dog.

I mean, Chief WAS a really cool dog. Apparently, he was one of the country’s first fire-rescue dogs. Chief was trained by his owner, Andrew O’Hotnicky, my son’s ancestor on his father’s side. (I wrote about Andrew here; all I knew about Chief at the time was a few fleeting recollections of relatives, whom I quoted.)

Later, I came across mention of Chief and his accomplishments in several newspapers, including this article from the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph (11 July 1937, p.48, found on GenealogyBank.com).

The ultimate discovery–and probably the REAL reason Alex remembers Chief–was because of this video I found on YouTube.

It’s a news reel film that says NOTHING about Andrew O’Hotnicky, the fire truck driver and dog trainer. It’s ALL about Chief. But I recognize Andrew from family photos and I did find a 1937 newspaper article mentioning that Chief was going to be a movie star (The Tribune [Scranton, PA], 17 Oct, 1937, found on GenealogyBank).

I guess I can’t blame Alex for choosing Chief!