“Large dog, tied to the threshold of the door of a house in which he stood guard." – Giuseppe Fiorelli in his Guida di Pompei, 1877. This is a cast of the guard dog of Marcus Vesonius Primus. The animal was tethered by the entrance to the Casa di Vesonius Primus or the House of Orpheus in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. Unable to flee, the dog died and his contorted pose suggests he was desperately attempting to free himself until his last breath. He probably suffocated to death or