First animal to receive the Blue Cross Medal

The first non-human recipient of the Blue Cross Medal for heroic actions was La Cloche, who received the inaugural award in 1940. The dog was on board the French steamer SS Meknes on 24 July 1940 when it was torpedoed off Portland, UK, and jumped into the sea to save his owner, a French mariner, who could not swim.

The Blue Cross animal charity was founded in London, UK, in 1897 under the name of Our Dumb Friends League (ODFL) to advocate for the welfare of and to treat working horses. It soon began to dispense awards and financial grants to organizations and individuals that had shown care of or kindness towards a range of domestic animals.

While the charity initially focused on celebrating humans who had shown compassion to animals, the notion of awarding animals themselves for acts of bravery or loyalty first arose in 1918, when an Order of Merit (a badge rather than a medal) was created by the Blue Cross Fund Committee to commemorate military horses that participated in World War I.

Later in the same year, another dog called Fluff also received the medal, for helping her family tunnel out of the rubble of their house after it was bombed and alert rescuers to their whereabouts. The first cat to receive the Blue Cross Medal, in 1942, was 19-year-old Jim, owned by Mr and Mrs Coffey of Malden, UK, who awoke his owners during a house fire at night, enabling them to escape.