Beautiful Joe

He was originally owned by a local Meaford man, who cruelly abused the dog to the point of near death, and even cut off his ears and tail.

In 1892, Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861–1947), first learned about Beautiful Joe when she visited her brother and his wife, Louise Moore.

Margaret Saunders relocated the story to a small town in Maine and changed the family's name from Moore to Morris to win a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society.

While it was not the first book to tell a story from an animal's viewpoint – Black Beauty by Anna Sewell was already on its way to becoming classic literature by then – it was still an uncommon narrative device.

In 1934, Saunders was granted Canada's highest civilian award at the time, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire or C.B.E.