Bolivar, also known as Tolliver, Bernie and Bornworthy is a non-anthropomorphic dog belonging to Donald Duck.
Description[]
Formerly a rescue St. Bernard in the Alps, Bolivar was the one to rescue Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy during a climb gone awry in 1936; he was subsequently adopted by Donald Duck, who brought him home and kept him as a pet ever since. Bolivar is not particularly intelligent, but he is placid and friendly. It seems that after being brought to Duckburg Bolivar "renounced" his past as a rescue dog, to the point that he refused to go near snow even if Donald ordered him to do so.
Behind the scenes[]
Bolivar was first seen in the 1936 cartoon Alpine Climbers; later that same year, More Kittens established he had moved to the city, before the March 1938 comic Forbidden Fruit revealed his owner to be Donald Duck.
Name[]
Authors have gone back and forth on the dog's name; Al Taliaferro had first baptised him “Tolliver”, after the common American pronunciation of his own name. Later reasoning that it was somewhat vain of him to have called a character after himself, he changed this to the similar-sounding Bolivar, which became the Saint-Bernard's classic name; but some thought it might be inappropriate for a "stupid dog" to have the name of a key figure in Venezuelan history, commonly considered a "national hero". Thus, several editors over the years have tried to suppress "Bolivar", for fear of Venezuelan authorities complaining, replacing it with “Bornworthy” or “Bernie”, though neither name has stuck.