The Greatest Literary Dog is ...

Thanks so much to everyone who voted in last week's poll to determine which literary dog SPS readers think is the greatest. Your votes were spread widely between the different candidates, and we'll be bringing you the results in a moment - but first of all, a role call of shame: the dogs we forgot ...

Mrs Cummings was kicking herself: 'I cannot believe I forgot about Gaspode! Terry Pratchett was famously a cat person but Gaspode is a delight. Gaspode possesses human-level intelligence and the ability to speak, as well as an extensive collection of diseases (including 'Licky end' which is only found in pregnant sheep). He is enamoured of the werewolf, makes filthy jokes and is a 'thinking brain' dog for Foul Ole Ron. A canine Dickensian urchin he appears in various books, but is best in Men at Arms.' 

Caleb Irons suggested Jip from David Copperfield: 'an absolute icon of a cavalier King Charles spaniel. If dogs could be divas, Jip would be the 'top dog'. Additionally, he plays a large symbolic role in David & Dora’s relationship.'

Dora and her pampered spaniel Jip: Sol Eytinge Jr's illustration from the 1867 Boston edition of David Copperfield

Numerous voters nominated Tintin's loyal fox terrier Snowy from Herge's Adventures of Tintin:

Chedly Kaffel spoke up for the misleadingly named Fluffy from Harry Potter:

Shekhu Pillai suggested Lightning, a three-legged dog who features in the forthcoming A Far-Flung Life by ML Stedman, set in the Australian outback in the 1950s: 

And William Nicholls felt we should have included the dog from The Incredible Journey. But which one? Bodger the bull terrier or Luath the golden retriever? or both? (the book blog's vote would be Bodger - Chance, if you're thinking of the 1990s film adaptation).    

Akshay Lallu nominated Shadow, from Michael Morpurgo's excellent novel of the same name:

Shadow is the loyal and courageous dog who protects Aman and his family as they escape the Taliban, and who turns out to have a hidden story of her own: 

Ethan Thirlwall nominated Bailey, whose many lives finally lead us to realise A Dog's Purpose, in the novel by W. Bruce Cameron:

Several readers also made a case for Jack London's White Fang - yes, he's half dog, half wolf, but given that we'd already included the dire wolf pups from A Song of Ice and Fire, we could definitely have made an exception for him as well.  

The full title of Jerome K Jerome's 1889 story of an amiably clueless voyage along the Thames is Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) - and unfortunately, say nothing is exactly what we did. Sorry, Montmorency! 

Further suggestions included Snoopy from Peanuts - not just a great dog, but also a great reader, and potentially a great writer, if he could just get past that first sentence: how could we have forgotten him???

Many of you also nominated other fondly remembered cartoon canines, including Gnasher from Dennis the Menace, Dav Pilker's Dog Man and Floppy from the numerous adventures of Biff, Chip and Kipper.

So - now to our winners.  In joint third place, we had ...

Wellington (from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) and Six Thirty (from Lessons in Chemistry).  

In joint second place were two childhood favourites - Timmy from Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Buck from Jack London's The Call of the Wild.  

But very much on his own, standing out above the crowd, with 35% of the vote was ...

Dogmatix!!  

And quite right too. Although we suspect Snoopy might have given him a run for his money, had we not forgotten to include him ...

Thanks again to all our voters and contributors: we hope you enjoyed the poll - we certainly enjoyed your suggestions!