--- title: Donald the Duck and Trigger the Dog: Unlikely BFFs description: Donald the Duck and Trigger the retriever were fast friends -- and the subjects of one of the sweetest animals pictures ever made. canonical: https://time.com/3877714/donald-the-duck-and-trigger-the-dog-unlikely-bffs/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-07-30T21:41:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T14:16:20.000Z og:title: Donald the Duck and Trigger the Dog: Unlikely BFFs og:description: Donald the Duck and Trigger the retriever were fast friends -- and the subjects of one of the sweetest animals pictures ever made. og:url: https://time.com/3877714/donald-the-duck-and-trigger-the-dog-unlikely-bffs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd25000280261bfa7/69884a7be20a878e6ba8ac0f/dean_c_ic_crop.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Donald the Duck and Trigger the Retriever_crop og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald the Duck and Trigger the Dog: Unlikely BFFs twitter:description: Donald the Duck and Trigger the retriever were fast friends -- and the subjects of one of the sweetest animals pictures ever made. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd25000280261bfa7/69884a7be20a878e6ba8ac0f/dean_c_ic_crop.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Duck's Alive. The Dog's Embarrassed. The Photo's a Classic by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:16 PM UTCPublished: Jul 30, 2013 9:41 PM UTC  Donald the dog-loving duck plays with his friend Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Donald the dog-loving duck plays with his friend Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:16 PM UTCPublished: Jul 30, 2013 9:41 PM UTC You know those times when you glimpse a photograph and you think you know what’s happening in the picture, but then something indefinable about the shot plants a seed of doubt, and you look again, and you find that your first impression was absolutely, utterly wrong? For a lot of people, this 1949 Loomis Dean picture is one of those photographs. At first glance, it looks pretty straightforward: a hunting dog, soaking wet after going into the water to retrieve a duck blasted from the air by its master, sits with the dead—or perhaps mortally wounded, but certainly doomed—waterfowl in its jaws. But wait a second. That duck doesn’t look injured. In fact, judging by its still (apparently) vibrant eye and, especially, its rapidly fluttering right leg, the duck is most definitely, emphatically _alive_. The priceless look on the dog’s face, meanwhile, is hardly that of a ghoul. In fact, if anything, the dog looks downright embarrassed—as if it would rather be anywhere but there, with a live duck in its mouth. What is going on here? We’ll let the caption that accompanied this picture in the unputdownable 2008 LIFE book, [_The Classic Collection_](http://www.amazon.com/Life-The-Classic-Collection-Editors/dp/1603200304), clear up any lingering confusion. “Don’t worry!” wrote the book’s editors. “The duck’s fine!” --- > “” --- Mystery solved. That’s one lucky duck. _Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com_  Donald the duck and his friend Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, Yakima, Wash., 1949. Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3877714/donald-the-duck-and-trigger-the-dog-unlikely-bffs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3877714/donald-the-duck-and-trigger-the-dog-unlikely-bffs/"},"headline":"The Duck's Alive. The Dog's Embarrassed. 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