"Be careful, for the dogs have had their way with this water pump!"
—Rolf, Ed, Edd n Eddy
In fiction, it seems to be assumed that dogs have a kind of fascination or obsession with fire hydrants, loving them almost as much as they love bones and chasing cats. Though not always stated outright the fact that they enjoy marking their territory on them is rarely denied, although sometimes it's treated more like normal urinating than territory marking and you have dogs waiting in line to pee on them for instance. Some works take the obsession to the next level, however, without mentioning this tendency.
This trope is to a certain extent very United States-centric. In many nations, fire hydrants are more inconspicuous (often being fully underground) and less likely to be seen by a dog as something to mark. For example, this
◊ is your average fire hydrant in the United Kingdom. In those countries, street lampposts and other utilities of that nature tend to have the reputation for attracting dogs, not hydrants.
Can overlap with Urine Trouble. Subtrope of Canine Confusion, since dogs in real life don't particularly love fire hydrants, and even when it comes to marking territory they don't prefer them over other objects.
Examples:
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Advertising
- One ad for Disney's Aladdin game for the Sega console has one boy claim to two associates that he has completed the game with two wishes left unused. One associate challenges him to prove that statement. The second associate is instantly transformed into a dog. Then the challenger is transformed into a fire hydrant. The dog pointedly notices this.
- The old ABC Saturday Morning "We'll be Right Back
" Ad Bumpers sometimes featured a claymation dog sniffing a sapient fire hydrant, only to be hosed down.
- A bumper from Cartoon Network's CN City features Scooby-Doo preparing to go on a hydrant, only for Courage to signal him to get in the back of the line. The camera then pans to a line of other cartoon dogs waiting to go (including Scrappy-Doo, Dino and Huckleberry Hound).
- A 1995 McDonald's commercial has Ronald McDonald return a lost dog to his owner. At one point, Ronald uses a dictionary to communicate to the dog, with one picture shown being that of a fire hydrant.
Anime & Manga
- Yo Kai Watch: Manjimutt, a dog yo-kai who Was Once a Man, gets arrested early in the series for urinating in public (on a hydrant naturally) since he was confused for a human.
Arts
- This fridge magnet by artist Gary Patterson. (In case someone can't access the link, it depicts a dog approaching a fire hydrant that has an "out of order" sign on it, as in a restroom.)
Asian Animation
- Lamput: In "Flicker", the docs keep finding Lamput trying to camouflage as different orange objects since their flicker serum is making him flash all sorts of colors besides his usual orange. Right before the docs find Lamput morphed into a fire hydrant, a dog is seen about to pee on him but gets scared by his color changing and runs away.
Comic Books
- In the 40th issue of The Superman Adventures, Mr. Mxyzptlk is ultimately punished for his latest shenanigans when the Zrrfian Council sentence him to spending 90 days on Earth trapped in the form of a fire hydrant. To make things especially undignified, the final panel has a bunch of dogs approaching him with the likely intent to mark their territory.
Comic Strips
- The title character of Buckles is shown to be in love with an inanimate hydrant, which he calls "Irene".
- Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes, once made a snowdog next to a fire hydrant, complete with lifted hind leg. Someone off-panel — one of his parents, most likely — wasn't thrilled.
- In one Far Side comic, an alien species (that just happens to resemble fire hydrants) comes to Earth. One of these aliens reports to his superiors how his first contact with a dog went: "I asked him to take me to his leader, and what happened next was horrible!"
Films — Animation
- In the beginning of Olive, the Other Reindeer, Olive is seen browsing a window display of fire hydrants.
- In the beginning of Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw, Whopper's nephew at one point stops to pee behind a hydrant.
- In Robots, a sentient fire hydrant tells a robotic dog, "Don't even think about it!" as it's lifting a hind leg near it. Seeing as the dog is a robot and later on, Crank changing his oil is seen as equivalent to using the bathroom, "it" in this context probably means discharging oil.
Films — Live-Action
- In Hotel for Dogs, the dogs have separate bathrooms for peeing and pooping. The peeing one resembles a fire hydrant.
- In The Three Stooges episode "Calling All Curs", the Stooges are following a dog who's supposed to be leading them to a criminal. But, the dog leads them to a fire hydrant instead.
Live-Action TV
- Andor. We're introduced to B2EMO—a red painted droid—wandering around Ferrix when some guard hounds pass the droid by. Not taking any chances, Bee promptly shuts itself off so that the hounds don't suspect anything. Turns out that worked a lot better than expected, because one of the hounds starts pissing on Bee as if it were a fire hydrant. Cue Bee shocking the hound for its troubles.
- In a variation, one of Robin's Boyfriends of the Week on How I Met Your Mother was described by everyone who met him as basically a dog in human form. He inadvertently emphasizes this impression later by taking a leak on a fire hydrant.
- On the Halloween Episode of The Middle, Brick reminisces on some of the embarrassing costumes he wore when trick-or-treating with Sue, one of which was her dressing as a Dalmatian while he dressed as a hydrant.
Music
- In the Smothers Brothers' version of the folk song "John Henry", Tommy narrates the story of a young John Henry hammering on random things:
Tommy: He got himself a bigger hammer. He started going around TOWN hammering things! Trees! People's fences! Fire hydrants! Whop! Whop!...Yeah...all the dogs in town hated John Henry!
Video Games
- In Balthazar's Dream, fire hydrants serve as save points in the game.
- Similarly, in Rocko's Modern Life: Spunky's Dangerous Day, fire hydrants serve as both save points and end goals for every level. The save points are classic red fire hydrants and the end goals are gold. Whenever Spunky encounters either, they'll morph into having smiley faces as he passes them.
- Inverted in Troggle Trouble Math. The fire hydrants in Santa Bongo hate dogs and will spray Sparky with water if he gets close, emptying one of your boxes of dog treats.
Web Comics
- One Brawl in the Family strip sees the player Villager from Animal Crossing washing off a Lloid note while shooting a Disapproving Look to a trio of very guilty-looking dog villagers.
Western Animation
- In the Animaniacs episode "Potty Emergency", Wakko sees a dog trying to use a fire hydrant.
- The Bagel and Becky Show has a whole episode where Bagel activates an ancient Egyptian curse by peeing on a cursed ancient fire hydrant.
- One of Cartoon Network's Cartoons That Never Made It interstitials, "Frothy Dawg", shows a shot of the titular rabid dog peeing on a hydrant.
- CatDog
- The episode "Trespassing" has Dog getting extremely pissed off when another dog uses a fire hydrant that he already claimed as his own. He then forces Cat to stay with him at the hydrant all day and night until he confronts the dog who used it.
- "The Golden Hydrant" had Cat finding out that Dog is in possession of the titular golden fire hydrant. Dog spends the whole episode trying to go on it with Cat always stopping him so he can make money off of it. When the Greaser Dogs end up relieving themselves on it, it turns out that it's just a regular fire hydrant painted gold. At the end of the episode when the whole group is eaten by a crocodile, Cat finds another golden hydrant, the dogs are all slowly walking towards it in a daze with Cat clutching the golden hydrant and pleading them to stop. An outside shot at the crocodile, Cat's voice can be heard saying, "Well, at least we know this one is real", implying that Dog and the Greasers peed on Cat and the hydrant.
- ChalkZone: The "Fireplug Ballet" segment shows a shot of the audience where some dogs are in a cage, presumably to prevent them from marking their territory on the dancing hydrants.
- Classic Disney Shorts: At the end of "The Worm Turns", after Pluto defeats Pete, he stops to sniff at a fire hydrant. Mickey sprays Courage Builder on the hydrant, and it attacks Pluto with a Hydrant Geyser.
- In the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Remembrance of Courage Past", one of the flashbacks to when Courage was a puppy shows his parents playing catch with him and getting distracted by admiring a fire hydrant.
- Darkwing Duck: The gag is referenced in "Quiverwing Quack" when Negaduck puts some vicious dogs in the back of his truck with the intent of using them in his scheme to become public enemy number one, only to be annoyed by the dogs' constant barking. After his truck crashes into a fire hydrant, he picks up the hydrant and puts it in the back of his truck while remarking that it ought to keep the dogs quiet for a while.
- Dog City, taking place in a setting inhabited by anthropomorphic dogs, used fire hydrants as toilets.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Teacher's Pet", Crocker becomes a Mix-and-Match Critter in order to capture all the fairies in Dimmsdale. When he attempts to splice the fairies' DNA into himself as well, Timmy and the others need to keep him busy while they sabotage his DNA machine. Since he was part bloodhound, Cosmo decides to change into a hydrant. Unfortunately, he realizes too late that he should've gone with a chew toy. It's not hard to imagine how this went wrong.
Cosmo: (Wearing a bath towel after showering) Well, the good news is that I bought us some time. The bad news is too terrible to talk about. (Sucks his thumb)
- Family Guy:
- In the first episode, Brian is seen urinating on a fire hydrant, though he goes by standing up like a human would at a urinal.
- Another episode has Stewie dress as a fire hydrant for Halloween. Brian comes along and you can guess what happens next.
- Futz!: In "Wash, Clip, and Futz", Futz gets back into his pet salon using a fire hydrant as a battering ram. The cat opens up the door, causing Futz to continue running, and crash into the table, getting the hydrant stuck on his leg. The dog then comes over and pees on said leg.
- Here Comes Garfield has a scene near the end where one of the dogs escaping from the pound with Garfield and Odie stops to sniff a fire hydrant.
- Hollywood Steps Out features a restaurant with a whole bunch of golden-age Hollywood celebs having a good time. There's a scene of vacant reserved tables, including one for the Bumstead family: chairs for Blondie and Dagwood, a high chair for Baby Dumpling, and a hydrant on the floor for Daisy the dog.
- When J. P. Gottrockets wins custody of The Jetsons' dog Astro as his long-lost dog Tralfaz, he offers Tralfaz a living area littered with doggie bones and fire hydrants.
- The Loud House: In "Pets Peeved", the Loud pets hold a meeting in Charles's doghouse, and the first slide of Charles's presentation is an Embarrassing Slide of a fire hydrant. Charles sheepishly covers it up.
- Implied in the Magnificent Muttley episode "Admiral Bird Dog," where Dick Dastardly and the Admiral (Muttley) race to make it to the North Pole. Dick sees no justification in a dog going to the North Pole, quipping "It if was the North Fire Hydrant, I could understand it!"
- Martha Speaks:
- Downplayed when Skits passes a fire hydrant in "Perfectly Martha". All he does is sniff. The same thing happens with John in "Nurse Martha".
- In "Martha Smells", Martha reveals that she can identify fire hydrants by smell, but when the humans ask how, she says, "You don't wanna know," implying that it's because other dogs have peed on them.
- In "Martha in the Hold", Martha is trying to find an excuse to stay in Wagstaff City since she's afraid to fly in a cargo hold. She mentions sniffing the fire hydrant, before admitting its smell never changes.
- Martha and her friends are often seen hanging out around a fire hydrant, though they don't usually pee on it or obsess over it.
- In "Ronald is In", this is downplayed when a fire hydrant is one of many things Martha sniffs at.
- The Noveltoons short "The Goal Rush" revolves around a football game between a team of cats and a team of dogs. At one point, a cat player distracts a dog player by throwing a fire hydrant in front of them.
- Peg + Cat: In "The Potty Problem", Big Dog passes a fire hydrant, and while all he does is sniff, it was likely an allusion to the peeing association since the episode had a Toilet Training Plot.
- Quack Pack:
- "The Germinator" has Daisy having to get Donald to cry so that Huey, Dewey, Louie and the episode's villain Dr. Tovar (who were shrunk) can exit Donald's body. To make him cry, Daisy reads Donald a spoof of Old Yeller, the last line she reads mentioning that the dog went to the old fire hydrant in the sky.
- In "Nosy Neighbors", Donald's fire hydrant disguise backfires when he gets chased by a dog.
- Rocko's Modern Life:
- In the episode "Who Gives a Buck?", Rocko is talked into buying his dog Spunky a hi-tech fire hydrant-shaped dog bowl.
- In the episode "Clean Lovin'", after falling in love with a mop and having a veterinarian take it away from him, Spunky rebounds by falling in love with a fire hydrant.
- The Real Ghostbusters:
- In "It's a Jungle Out There", Winston says that dogs are excited by fire hydrants, unlike humans.
- In "Stay Tooned", when Winston turns into an anthropomorphic dog, he tells his friends not to joke about fire hydrants.
- In the "Slimer" short "Dog Days", a dog training school has fire hydrant statues as decorations.
- Ren & Stimpy: At the end of "Fire Dogs", the pair is given an award shaped like a hydrant. The last shot is a line of dogs waiting to relieve themselves on it.
- In the Screen Songs short "Toys Will be Toys", one of the toys in the parade of wind-up toys is of a dog trying to run towards a fire hydrant.
- Seven Little Monsters:
- "Losing Sam" has a gag where a dog is near a fire hydrant and about to mark his territory before the dog and the hydrant are shot into the air by overwhelming water pressure.
- In "Runaway Mom", a mother dog and her puppies are shown sniffing at a fire hydrant.
- Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue!: In "More Fondue for Scooby-Doo", there's a gag where Misty Swiss has snow fall on her and it forms the shape of a fire hydrant, afterwards Misty Swiss's dog Carla attempts to pee on her
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: "Hydro-Man" has Spidey make fun of the titular villain by joking that he said his name was "Hydrant-Man" and quipping that he must be very popular with the dogs.
- Alluded to in Tamagotchi Video Adventures. During the "What's a Tamagotchi?" song, Pochitchi, a dog Tamagotchi, is seen next to a fire hydrant for a second or so.
- The first episode of Teacher's Pet has Spot, while in his human disguise, come across a fire hydrant and try to avoid using it.
- Tex Avery MGM Cartoons:
- In a cartoon starring George and Junior as dog catchers, they dress as fire hydrants to attract a dog they've been trying to catch. They end up being chased by every dog in town.
- In the first Droopy cartoon, he walks behind a hydrant and, after a brief pause, walks out with a look of embarrassment on his face.
- T.U.F.F. Puppy frequently has Dudley demonstrate the tendency for dogs to be associated with fire hydrants.
- "Dudley Do-Wrong" has Dudley mention that he likes Mayor Teddy for painting all the town's fire hydrants bright orange so they are easier to find at night, then insists he uses the public restrooms like everyone else after receiving awkward stares from Kitty Katswell, Keswick and the Chief.
- "Dog Tired" has Dudley dream that he is chasing an anthropomorphic fire hydrant a la Pepé Le Pew
Fire Hydrant: Oh, no! Not again!
Dudley: What? I'm not gonna do anything.
Fire Hydrant: That's what you said yesterday, and you did a lot. - The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald: Ronald's dog Sundae remarks in "Birthday World" that he needs to find a fire hydrant when the gang have been de-aged into babies and toddlers and are panicking at the realization that Professor Pinchworm is coming their way.
Real Life
- In big cities where there aren't many upright objects like trees, dogs do mark their territory on fire hydrants, but will just as likely use a telephone pole or something else. Plus if a dog has urinated there already, another will also do so, as this is one way dogs pass on information — particularly in regards to territory.
- Fake fire hydrant lawn statues are sold to give people's pet dogs a place to do their business.
