Were the Salem Witch Trials Ruff on Dogs?

I teach a course on New England witchcraft trials, and students always arrive with varying degrees of knowledge of what happened in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.

Nineteen people accused of witchcraft were executed by hanging, another was pressed to death and at least 150 were imprisoned in conditions that caused the death of at least five more innocents. Each semester, a few students ask me about stories they have heard about dogs.

In 17th-century Salem, dogs were part of everyday life: People kept dogs to protect themselves, their homes and their livestock, to help with hunting, and to provide companionship.

However, a variety of folklore traditions also associated dogs with the devil—beliefs that long predated what happened in Salem. Perhaps the most famous example of such belief is the case of a poodle named Boy who belonged to Prince Rupert, an English-German cavalry commander on the Royalist side during the English Civil War. Between 1643 and 1644, stories spread across Europe that Boy the poodle had supernatural powers, including shape-shifting and prophecy, that he used to aid his master on the battlefield.

There is no mention in the official records of Salem’s trials of any dogs being tried or killed for witchcraft. However, dogs appear several times in the testimony, typically because an accused witch was believed to have had a dog as a “familiar” who would do her bidding, or because the devil appeared in the form of a dog.

Leave a Comment