In The Pawprints of History, Stanley Coren advanced an interesting argument: Had it not been for timely canine intervention, the American Revolution might never have happened:

"...in the fourteenth century, Robert the Bruce, of Scotland, was saved from death by one of his Talbots. Had Robert not been saved, Coren reasons, the Scottish Stuarts would not have taken over the English throne, and porphyria, the hereditary disease that afflicted mad King George III, would not have entered the English royal line.

"Thus, with English monarchs behaving more rationally, things might have been worked out in a friendly way with the rebellious colonials."