Bungie the bulldog at the ROM

In the upcoming episode of Museum Secrets: Inside the Royal Ontario Museum we reveal mysteries that span lost dinosaurs to baby mummies. We also get to know a Bulldog named Bungie.

Bungie, a very cute champion bulldog from the 1930s, now spends his days as part of an incredible collection of stuffed dogs deep within the ROM’s vaults.

What is this once-famous Brit doing in the basement of a museum in Toronto? He’s here because he died in Toronto, on a hot day in 1936. The cause of death wasn’t illness, or accident, or cruelty. So why did Bungie drop dead? And what does his death reveal about our own species?

You’ll have to watch the episode when it airs to learn the secrets of the ROM’s decorated specimen – the series premieres on History Television on January 6^th – but one thing I can tell you now, is how committed you have to be to own a bulldog.

We spent some time with some of Bungie’s living relatives during the production of the ROM episode, and while the canines charmed us, I wasn’t won over by how much they can cost to take care of. And that got me hooked into some research into the world of pet insurance.

It’s no secret that treating a dog’s illness is expensive. In fact in 2008 the New York Times reported on the new surge in pet insurance companies in the United States. More and more pet owners are willing to buy insurance in order to curtail unexpected costs when their dogs’ illnesses occur. More recently the New York Times asked readers how much they were willing to spend on a sick pet and got interesting results.

Would you get pet health insurance to make sure you can cover the costs of your pet?

Have any of you had bulldogs in your family for generations and kept old photographs? We have a few great shots of Bungie in our Museum Secrets Flikr set and we’d love to include yours.

Let us know!