A fact from Juliana (dog) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 September 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Great Dane Juliana received a medal for extinguishing an incendiary bomb by urinating on it?
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Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Saw this report when it recently hit the media after the medal was auctioned. While the dog presumably did extinguish the incendiary bomb as the medal claims, the claim that she did so by urinating on it was based solely on a remark by the auctioneer, who said "I've never heard of a dog being able to extinguish a bomb before—one can only assume this was a Great Dane with a great bladder." [1] In other words, the claim is pure speculation, possibly intended more to amuse than anything else. Naturally the media, seeing a great hook, went and ran with the claim. But one could just as easily imagine the dog extinguishing the bomb by throwing earth on it or something similar. While reporting the auctioneer's remark is fine, we shouldn't be making it sound like established fact. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 02:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
The BBC report it differently as "This was clearly a Great Dane with a great bladder", making it sound more like it is known to have happened, but your point is certainly valid. Either way the article's use of "reported" does allow us to note the claim without commenting on its factuality. violet/riga[talk]08:15, 14 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
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