“Roy the Dog”: The story behind the local icon

PHOTO: The “Roy the Dog” sculpture

By Juna Brothers

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

The gargantuan sculpture stands tall and proud outside the John Natsoulas Gallery. “Roy the Dog” is one of Davis’ most famous landmarks. 

The sculpture was created because John Natsoulas, the gallery owner, wanted to honor the late Roy De Forest, a painter and sculptor known for the prominent depictions of dogs in his work. 

Natsoulas worked with local artists and community volunteers to construct Roy from donated vinyl records and tin. A year after Roy’s completion in 2015, the “Pokemon Go” craze hit. 

Because of the murals and sculptures around downtown Davis that Natsoulas and a team of local artists and volunteers created, the area was overflowing with Pokemon stops. 

“And all of a sudden, all of these people are playing Pokemon everywhere and everybody’s so grateful they got better business,” Natsoulas said.

Though Roy was intended to be replaced with another sculpture after a few years, the mobile app’s success made Natsoulas change his mind. 

“I realized I couldn’t take down ‘Roy the Dog’ at that point because we had crowds of people sitting here playing Pokemon,” Natsoulas said. 

Roy has proved to be an important member of the Davis community. In fact, he even saved a man’s life several years ago. 

The man was driving while intoxicated and emerged from the underpass going 70 miles per hour before colliding with Roy. According to experts, if Roy wasn’t there, the man would have died. 

“He hit the side of ‘Roy the Dog,’ moved (him) over, and it softened it. And then he hit the deck and broke the deck…and he lived and he got out the vehicle. I’m sure being drunk helped him, because you’re looser, but he lived,” Natoulas said.