9 Best Far Side Comics Where Dogs Get the Upper Hand on Owners (#3 Is Why Puppy-Dog Eyes Always Win)

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Gary Larson drew plenty of dogs who fetched, begged, and chased the mail carrier. In The Far Side , the family dog is usually the calmest, sharpest, or most dangerous creature in the house, and the humans rarely catch on. Those strips already make up some of the best Far Side comics about dogs , but the ones where the dog flips the power balance are true comedic gems.

For this list, I went back through The Complete Far Side and pulled the comic strips where the dog comes out on top. Each one leaves the owner outmatched or gobsmacked by the dog's ability to do what the owner can't. The comedy ranges from sweet to downright dark, but each strip proves the dog has been running the house all along.

Calm heads usually prevail in an emergency, but sometimes the pressure is too much for anyone to keep their composure. Enter Fifi. The unfazed good girl steps in to land a crashing plane, with her owners likely in hysterics. The furry friend had better get all the treats she wants after that.

Airplane! hit theaters in 1980, three years before this strip, with the same basic emergency. The movie also turned Leslie Nielsen into a comedic legend , but it needed a former fighter pilot with a drinking problem to land the plane. Gary Larson's version just needed somebody with four legs and a steady nerve.

" We don't deserve dogs " is a common saying, and maybe it's truer than anyone realized. The owner gets an abrupt farewell as she learns her dog is leaving Earth on his own terms. Or perhaps, like the infamous Poochie from The Simpsons , his home planet needs him. Compared to most alien-invasion sci-fi TV shows , this first contact is downright polite.

Real dogs beat this one to orbit by more than two decades. Smithsonian's Air & Space magazine credits Belka and Strelka as the first living creatures to orbit Earth and return safely, after Sputnik 5 launched on Aug. 19, 1960. Nikita Khrushchev later gave Strelka's daughter, Pushinka, to Jacqueline Kennedy. Pushinka learned to climb the ladder to Caroline Kennedy's playhouse.

This strip was difficult to include, as it leans more into the dark side of The Far Side . Gary Larson once worked as an investigator for his local Humane Society, as the Deseret News reported, so he likely saw his fair share of bad homes. Placing a dog in such a home with a crazy revenge plot is a bit grim. Yet, as far as dogs getting their revenge, it is the best visual in the bunch.

There's no reason to get too down, though, as there is another interpretation here worth exploring. Gary Larson drew this one in 1988, with the Cold War still on. The dog's plan of mutually assured destruction echoes the era's tension with a subtle wit.

What a happy, well-fed doggo; ignore the last few remnants of his owner. The two sailors leaning over the rail don't clock any of it, caught up in the joy of seeing a dog at sea, and it's hard to blame them.

Dogs are famous for staying loyal long after their owners are gone. The Scotsman recounts how Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye Terrier, slept on his owner John Gray's grave in Edinburgh for about 14 years after Gray died in 1858. The Lord Provost even paid Bobby's license fee in 1867 so they wouldn't round him up as a stray. It seems there is no loyalty on the lifeboat, though.

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The idea of mad clicking and clacking only to reveal a dog writing is peak Gary Larson silliness. It would make any owner chuckle, but the real kicker is that the dog knows the truth. Another famous writing dog, Snoopy, spent decades pecking out novels on top of his doghouse. Snoopy's smartest Peanuts line suggests Charles Schulz saw a lot of himself in that writer. Gary Larson's dog has a much different story to tell than Schulz ever would.

Surprisingly, dogs watch and pick up on their owners' habits. NPR covered a 2016 Current Biology study in which 17 dogs watched their owners do something odd, like tapping an open umbrella, and then copied the action on command, even up to an hour later. Lead researcher Claudia Fugazza stopped short of calling it full episodic memory, but Jack, the owner on the stairs, should still watch what he does in front of the dog.

Tests can be anxiety-inducing, especially if the proctor is someone you know. Gary Larson takes the checklist owners fill out before bringing a dog home and flips it into a dog grilling its owner. The result is gleefully absurd. Ted is the only one in the room chewing on anything, which makes question 47 a lot less hypothetical.

Measuring a dog's smarts takes more than a checklist. In 1994, a few months after this strip ran, psychologist Stanley Coren published The Intelligence of Dogs , ranking breeds by surveying 199 obedience judges across North America. Coren explained in Psychology Today that 190 of those judges ranked the Border Collie in their top 10, while the Afghan Hound ranked last. Lucky never needed a survey to know who the smart one in the room was.

How peculiar that a dog with a gun still seems to be the one in the right; it has to be those adorable puppy-dog eyes. Gary Larson is the only cartoonist who could draw a two-legged dog with a pistol and make it a hilarious confrontation that resonates with dog owners. No more begging for this pooch.

Dogs have evolved that begging face over thousands of years, and this one uses it. CNN covered a 2019 study led by Juliane Kaminski at the University of Portsmouth that found dogs have a muscle that lifts the inner eyebrow. That raised brow makes a dog's eyes look bigger and more infant-like, and people respond by wanting to take care of them.

Gary Larson turns a classroom of good boys into a full-blown hostage situation, ski masks and all, and poor Ms. Gibson never stood a chance. The coup's only demand is fetch, and their owners will soon learn that no obedience school can keep them in line.

The American Kennel Club traces formal obedience trials back to Standard Poodle breeder Helen Whitehouse Walker, who wanted to prove her dogs were more than a fancy haircut. She held the first test in October 1933 on her father's estate in Mount Kisco, New York. Eight dogs entered, and a Labrador Retriever won. The poodle in Ms. Gibson's back row is honoring that legacy by staying out of it.

The cat-and-dog rivalry gets heated in plenty of homes, but this one went a little too far. The best part is that the cat was the target, and the husband was simply collateral damage. Gary Larson always prioritized the grudge between the two, and this is a great example of how owners get caught in the middle. This one could easily slot in with the best Far Side comics about crime .

The American Animal Hospital Association reported that the Auckland SPCA put rescue dogs through eight weeks of driving lessons in 2012, using a modified Mini with handles on the steering wheel and adapted pedals. Monty and Porter each drove solo laps on New Zealand national television. This Far Side crime may not be as far-fetched as it seems.