The Captain's Dog
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40 free The Captain's Dog trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Captain's Dog retells the Lewis and Clark expedition through the eyes of Seaman, the dog who really did make the journey at Meriwether Lewis's side. Roland Smith's novel, first published in 1999, sets the dog's memories beside genuine entries from the captain's journal, so readers get the facts and a good story at once. This quiz covers both halves of that mix. Some questions are about the book itself: how it opens, who tells it, and the writer behind it. Most follow the real events the novel is built on, from Seaman's hunting and his narrow escapes to the people, places and waterways along the route to the Pacific and back. It suits students who have just finished the book, teachers and parents who want a ready-made multiple choice review, and anyone curious about the most travelled dog in American history. The first questions are the most approachable, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
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Q 01Which breed is Seaman, the narrator of Roland Smith's Lewis and Clark novel The Captain's Dog?
Newfoundland
Newfoundland dogs are strong swimmers known for water rescues, which is why Meriwether Lewis chose one for a river journey. He paid $20 for Seaman, half a month of an Army captain's pay.
Q 02Which animal bit Seaman's hind leg so badly that Lewis feared his dog would bleed to death?
A beaver
A beaver severed an artery in Seaman's leg in May 1805, and Lewis struggled to stop the bleeding. The dog lived to finish the whole journey.
Q 03Which enslaved man, owned by William Clark, crossed the continent with Seaman and the Corps of Discovery?
York
York took part in the vote on where to winter at the Pacific, yet Clark repeatedly refused to free him once the journey was over.
Q 04Which animals did Seaman pluck from the river mid-swim so that Lewis could eat them fried?
Squirrels
Squirrels were swimming across the river in September 1803, early in the trip. Lewis wrote that his dog killed them in the water and swam back with them in his mouth.
Q 05Which president, who once employed Meriwether Lewis as his private secretary, sent the Corps of Discovery west?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson commissioned the journey in 1803 and named Lewis its leader. Lewis then invited William Clark to share the command with him.
Q 06On the journey home from the Pacific, what happened to Seaman that made Lewis send three men after him?
He was stolen
He was stolen by Native villagers early in the return trip. The three men Lewis sent got him back, and Seaman went on to finish the whole journey.
Q 07Which washed-up sea creature did Sacagawea insist on travelling to the Pacific beach to see for herself?
A whale
A whale had washed ashore south of the explorers' winter fort, and Sacagawea insisted on her right to go and see what the journals call a monstrous fish.
Q 08A misreading of Lewis's handwriting led historians to call Seaman by which wrong name for decades?
Scannon
Scannon was the accepted name until the mid-1980s, when historian Donald Jackson studied a Montana place name that Lewis had chosen for his dog and read the word afresh.
Q 09An 1814 account says Seaman refused to leave Meriwether Lewis's grave and soon died of what?
Grief
Grief is the cause given by a historian of the time, who wrote that the dog would take no food after his master died in 1809.
Q 10Roland Smith jokes that The Captain's Dog is written not in first person but in first what?
Canine
Canine is Smith's word for it, because Seaman tells the whole story himself. Short diary entries by Captain Lewis sit beside the dog's version of events.
Q 11The Captain's Dog opens in 1808 with Seaman living among which people of the Northwest?
Nez Perce
Nez Perce villagers are looking after Seaman when two former members of the expedition find him. Hearing Lewis's old journal read aloud sets the dog's memories going.
Q 12In The Captain's Dog, Lewis's leather-bound journal, rescued by Seaman, is which colour?
Red
Red leather covers the journal, and the entries read aloud from it are genuine text from Lewis's own writings. Each one triggers one of Seaman's flashbacks.
Q 13The full title of Roland Smith's novel is The Captain's Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark what?
Tribe
Tribe finishes the title. A Publishers Weekly review praised the dog's fresh, original view of the many customs and peoples the explorers met.
Q 21Which huge animal blundered into Lewis and Clark's sleeping camp one night until Seaman drove it off?
A buffalo
A buffalo wandered in among the sleeping men, and Seaman had to chase it out. Moments like that are why the explorers came to call him our dog.
Q 22Seaman patrolled Lewis and Clark's camp all night to warn the men about which dangerous predators?
Bears
Bears were what Seaman watched for after dark, and Lewis wrote that the dog kept barking all night. Shoshone hosts later admired the dog's good sense.
Q 23In Lewis's last journal mention of Seaman, the dog is howling from the torture of which pests?
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes were so thick in July 1806 that Lewis wrote the men could scarcely exist. After that entry Seaman is never mentioned in the journals again.
Q 14Roland Smith, author of The Captain's Dog, spent about twenty years in which job before writing novels?
Zookeeper
Zookeeper was Smith's job for two decades in Oregon and Washington, and his earliest books were nonfiction about the animals he worked with.
Q 15Roland Smith, who wrote The Captain's Dog, published his first book after helping save wildlife from which disaster?
Exxon Valdez oil spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill fouled the Alaskan coast in 1989. Smith turned the rescue effort into Sea Otter Rescue, a true account of how the animals were saved.
Q 16In The Captain's Dog, Lewis shows he trusts the dog he has just bought by not using what?
A rope
A rope is what a buyer would normally tie on, but Lewis lets Seaman walk free after buying him from a greedy sailor. The scene marks the captain as trusting and compassionate.
Q 17In The Captain's Dog, Lewis berates himself when which of his own inventions fails on the trail?
An iron boat
An iron boat was Lewis's pet scheme, and its failure stings him in the novel. Seaman responds by running through everything his master has already achieved.
Q 18As a pup in The Captain's Dog, Seaman chases rats on the banks of which river before meeting Lewis?
Ohio
The Ohio is where young Seaman expects to spend his life catching rats. The real Lewis set off down the same river from Pittsburgh in August 1803.
Q 19Booklist's review of The Captain's Dog praised it as a marvelous piece of which genre?
Historical fiction
Historical fiction is how a Booklist reviewer described the book, calling it a marvelous example. The diary lines are real, while Seaman's thoughts are the author's invention.
Q 20Roland Smith, author of The Captain's Dog, was born in which Oregon city?
Portland
Portland is Smith's home town, and he studied at its state university. Lewis and Clark's canoes passed the site of the future city on their way to the coast.
Q 24A man from which nation offered Lewis three pelts for Seaman, only to be turned down flat?
Shawnee
A Shawnee man made the offer in November 1803, before the party had even started west. Lewis wrote that he had paid $20 for the dog and prized him too much to bargain.
Q 25Lewis honoured Seaman by giving the dog's name to which kind of landmark in Montana?
A creek
A creek in western Montana became Seaman's Creek, known today as Monture Creek. Every member of the party had some feature of the land named after him.
Q 26Which of Seaman's belongings, seen in an Alexandria museum in 1814, bore an inscription about reaching the Pacific?
His collar
His collar named him as the dog of Captain Meriwether Lewis and described him as the greatest traveller of his species.
Q 27Which fast prairie animal did Seaman once kill and bring back as it swam across a river?
An antelope
An antelope was the most striking of Seaman's catches, but he also fetched geese and deer for the hunters.
Q 28Seaman's breed excels at water rescue partly because of which feature of its feet?
Webbed paws
Webbed paws, a muscular build and a thick double coat make the breed a natural lifesaver, which suited a journey made mostly by river.
Q 29Which 1803 land deal with France gave Lewis, Clark and Seaman a vast new territory to explore?
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase roughly doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson had asked Congress to fund the journey months before the treaty was signed.
Q 30In which city on the Mississippi did the Corps of Discovery end its journey in September 1806?
St. Louis
St. Louis saw the party return on September 23, exactly six months after it set out from its winter fort near the Pacific.