In Mark Twain’s short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” a man named Simon Wheeler describes an “uncommon lucky” gambler named Jim Smiley who is “always ready and laying for a chance.” Among Smiley’s betting ventures—which include a horse-racing mare and the titular frog—is a small bull pup named Andrew Jackson: “to look at him you’d think he wan’s worth a cent ... but as soon as money was up on him, he was a different dog.”

The undersized Andrew Jackson would win its dog fights by harnessing its jaws on the back legs of the larger dogs and hanging on until the opposing side quit the contest—or, in the words of Simon Wheeler, “throng up the sponge.” Andrew Jackson’s tenacity is comparable to the tenacity of Smiley’s mare and Smiley’s own indefatigable desire to gamble. It is not until Andrew Jackson comes up against a dog with no hind legs, because they have been “sawed off by a circular saw,” that the tenacious pup feels bad, lies down, and dies.

The dog with no hind legs foreshadows the eventual downfall of the Jumping Frog, who also loses a competition due to the sneakiness of a cheating opponent and who fills the Jumping Frog with a spoonful of quail shot pellets, inhibiting its ability to jump.