Toto (dog)

Toto
Oz character
Illustration by W. W. Denslow
First appearance	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Created by	L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow
Portrayed by	Terry
Information
Species	Dog
Gender	male
Occupation	Dorothy Gale's dog

Toto is a fictional dog in L. Frank Baum's Oz series of children's books, and works derived from them. The name is pronounced with a long "O", a homophone of "toe toe". The dog was originally a small terrier drawn by W. W. Denslow for the first edition of the Wizard of Oz (1900). He reappears in numerous adaptations, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Wiz (1978) and Return to Oz (1985).

Toto belongs to Dorothy Gale, the heroine of the first and many subsequent books. In the first book, he never spoke, although other animals, native to Oz, did. In subsequent books, other animals gained the ability to speak upon reaching Oz or similar lands, but Toto remained speechless. In Tik-Tok of Oz, continuity is restored: Toto reveals that he is able to talk, just like other animals in the land of Oz, and simply chooses not to. In The Lost Princess of Oz, he talks a blue streak. Other major appearances include The Road to Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, Grampa in Oz and The Magical Mimics in Oz, in which he is the first to recognize the Mimics.

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum did not specifically state Toto's breed, but describes him as "a little black dog (male although he was played by a female dog in the 1939 MGM movie) with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose". However, from the illustrations in the first book many have concluded that he is a Cairn Terrier while others believe he is a Yorkshire Terrier as this breed was very popular at the time and it fits the illustration quite well. In subsequent books he becomes a Boston Terrier for reasons that are never explained, but then resumes the earlier look in later books.