The Times’s motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” but an unusual dog story often made the grade decades ago. Articles about dogs with peculiar habits, strange skills and incredible achievements appeared regularly in the newspaper of record. Many of the stories are funny, some are heartwarming and all are proof that fact is stranger than fiction.

For this book, our researchers delved deep into our archives to uncover the best tales, including: “Three-legged Dog Saves Two in Fire,” “A Dog That Talks,” “Bulldog Pleads His Own Case, and Wins, in Court” and the all-encompassing “Dog Chases Snake Fleeing With Fish Caught for Cat.”

The book pays tribute to Balto, the wonder dog who led a team of sled dogs on a life-saving journey in Alaska, as well as Rin Tin Tin and Lassie of Hollywood fame. But the real stars are ordinary dogs doing the extraordinary.

Discover dogs who swallow diamonds, wear glasses, return a lost $10 bill, pick fruit, befriend other animals and capture robbers. Learn about dogs who parachute jump, catch fish, survive Niagara Falls unhurt, ride trains alone, get drunk and inherit money. And marvel at heroic canines, like the dog who protects a girl from a charging bull  and the pooch who saves a boy who fell in a well, though the story doesn’t say if his name is Timmy.

The articles were published as long ago as 1854 and as recently as 1964, apparently the golden age of newspaper dog stories. Articles are reprinted just as they appeared in the paper.

The book also includes more than 40 black-and-white historical photos, five new full-page color illustrations and an introduction by Sarah Lyall, a writer at large at The Times.