Were There Dogs at the First Thanksgiving? Probably!

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Many popular reimaginings of the first Thanksgiving share some common features: a cornucopia full of gourds. Tall, tall hats on the heads of Europeans. And a dog at everyone’s feet. For an example, see this scene painted in 1912.

But, of course, many renderings of the first Thanksgiving are less than faithful to the actual event. The aforelinked painting, for example, depicts wildly inaccurate attire on all of the attendees of that fateful meal. Knowing this, we wanted to find out: Were there actually dogs at the first Thanksgiving? The answer is a resounding “most likely.”

Dogs made it into the only English records from Plymouth  

One of the barriers to knowing for sure whether there were dogs at the 1621 harvest celebration we call “Thanksgiving” is that we don’t know much about it at all. There are only two written accounts that mention it. 

The first comes from Mourt’s Relation, a pamphlet that described the early days of the Pilgrims in Plymouth. The pamphlet is often attributed to two of the group’s leaders, Edward Winslow and William Bradford. They described how the governor sent men fowling, and how Wampanoag’s leader Massasoit and his men arrived, hunting five deer to share. This is largely understood to be the basis of Thanksgiving. 

The second account appears in Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, written years later—between 1630 and 1647—which briefly mentions the abundant harvest of 1621.

Dogs appear in neither source during any description of the feast. But the rest of the works, especially Mourt’s Relation, provide compelling evidence that dogs came over with pilgrims on the Mayflower and lived alongside men and women in the colony.

In Mourt’s Relation, the author (or authors) recount an incident from January 1621—months before the harvest celebration—in which two colonists, John Goodman and Peter Brown, got lost in the woods.

“These two that were missed, at dinner time took their meat in their hands, and would go walk and refresh themselves,” the account reads. “So going a little off they find a lake of water, and having a great mastiff bitch with them and a spaniel, by the water side they found a great deer; the dogs chased him, and they followed so far as they lost themselves.”

The dogs proved essential to the men’s survival during their night in the forest. The men heard what they believed to be lions roaring in the darkness, “and had all they can do to hold the mastiff” from charging. 

They survived the cold night and made their way back to the plantation, where Goodman had to have his shoes cut off due to swelling from the cold. Because the account doesn’t confirm it, we can only assume that the mastiff and spaniel made it back with them (a spaniel is mentioned later in Mourt’s Relation).

What were dogs to 17th Century Europeans?  

Kim VanWormer, the Deputy Director of Education and Public Engagement at the Plimoth Petuxet Museums, a collection of seven historic sites that help tell the story of those early Puritans and Wampanoag people, shared more about what dogs were to the 17th Century English. Some were “comfort dogs” (or the familiar “lap dogs”), while others had roles we would never subject our beloved dogs to today. For example, turnspit dogs turned the meat over the fire in kitchens.

In the New World, dogs were essential as protection and as hunting aids. We know dogs were valuable to pilgrims, VanWormer explains, “because they’re giving them resources. You have to make sure it’s worth all that food that you’re putting into [the dog’s] mouth. They did not do that by accident,” VanWormer said.  

What were dogs to the Wampanoag? 

Like the Wampanoag, dogs were already in North America (or Turtle Island, their name for the continent). And the Patuxet, a band within the Wampanoag Nation, had dogs too. According to Mourt’s Relation, the English’s first encounter with the Indigenous peoples on land was also their first encounter with the native dogs. As Puritans walked on the shore, five or six people appeared from the brush. “When they saw [the Puritans],” the authors wrote, these men “ran into the wood and whistled the dog after them.”

Danielle Alonso, the Curator of Indigenous Material Culture and Research at the Plimoth Petuxet Museums, sketched out dogs’ unique place in Wampanoag culture. The type of dog present in the region was likely the Carolina dog, also known as the American dingo—a medium-sized animal described in early colonial writings as “resembling a wolf, but no larger than an English fox,” she said. 

These dogs served as hunting companions, particularly during November, known in Wampanoag culture as “the hunting moon” (outside this season, they were mostly sustained by gathering). They also protected homes and gardens from predators like wolves and mountain lions. Dogs were the only domesticated animal in Wampanoag society, and an archaeological dig from outside Boston revealed the pets buried at the feet of native people.

While no one explicitly recorded the presence of the Carolina dogs at the feast, Alonso finds the circumstantial evidence from the Wampanoag side compelling. When Massasoit arrived with his men, it was likely part of the custom of alliance-building, which included entire families. They would all appear and expect to be hosted at the drop of a hat as a sign of goodwill between the allied tribes. And Mourt’s Relation says that Massasoit sent his men out to hunt—and they returned with five deer for the feast.

“If they were hunting, they would have naturally had their dogs with them,” Alonso said. She imagines the scene: while men engaged in conversations at the feast, Wampanoag children played with their dogs on the outskirts of the camp. On both sides—European and Indigenous—there’s a lot to suggest that dogs were at the feast. 

What does it mean to us if dogs were at the first Thanksgiving?

Both Alonso and VanWormer said that one of the most frequent questions they get at their museums, ones that represent English villages and Wampanoag homes, is: Did they have dogs? 

Why do we care so much? What’s it to us modern folk if there were cute, furry creatures begging for scraps under the table of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag? 

“People are always trying to find a point of connection,” Alonso noted. When guests see the tools, furs, and pelts in recreated Wampanoag homes and learn about their respectful, seasonal approach to hunting, they want to understand their relationship with animals more deeply.

VanWormer agreed that understanding the role of dogs can provide a connection to the past that people crave. These stories happened so long ago that those involved can seem almost otherworldly. 

“I think the more that we can kind of humanize [the people at the first Thanksgiving], the more we can be connected with them,” she said. “And dogs, people love. They’re an entry point into the story.” 

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