Queequeg was a male pomeranian dog that, in 1995, first belonged to Mrs. Lowe before being taken into the care of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully. (TXF: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", et al.) Scully named the dog Queequeg after the harpooner in Moby Dick, continuing a Scully family tradition of nicknames taken from that book; Scully had called her father "Ahab" and he had called her "Starbuck." (TXF: "Quagmire") Queequeg had a small, bone-shaped, golden metallic name tag that he wore around his neck, affixed to his collar. Unfortunately, Queequeg was tragically killed and eaten by an alligator in 1996. (TXF: "Quagmire") Years later, in 2002, Scully commemorated her pet dog by using the email address "Queequeg0925@hotmail.com". (TXF: "Trust No 1")
- What Mrs. Lowe called the dog is never revealed.
Profile
Life
Clyde Bruckman looks at Queequeg outside the apartment where the dog originally lived
At one point when the psychic Clyde Bruckman was collecting garbage from Mrs. Lowe's apartment one night, Queequeg waited outside the apartment as Mrs. Lowe momentarily went back inside. The dog appeared to Bruckman in a vision of the animal eating bloodied human remains so Bruckman - referring to the animal as a monster - shooed the dog away, lightly kicking it. Bruckman was concerned about whether Mrs. Lowe had enough dog food but she took no notice, closing the door on him.
After Bruckman helped Scully and Agent Mulder with a murder case, the agents found - outside Mrs. Lowe's apartment - not only Queequeg but also a letter about the dog, written by Bruckman. It implied that the dog had eaten some of its owner's remains, after Mrs. Lowe had passed away during the previous night, and asked if Scully wanted a dog. The letter also described the dog as "paper-trained and well-behaved," despite its gruesome actions in the night, for which Bruckman placed no blame on the dog.
It was following this incident that Scully took the dog into her care. Shortly after she and Mulder found that Bruckman had apparently committed suicide, Scully took the dog home with her and was curled up with Queequeg on her couch, petting him, when an old black-and-white movie she had been watching on television ended. (TXF: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose")
Queequeg is bathed by Dana Scully
Soapy liquid from a bottle called Die! Flea! Die! was later rubbed into Queequeg's fur by Scully as he stood in her kitchen sink. Upon Scully instructing him to stay in the sink as she went to answer a phone call from Mulder, the dog gave a single yelp and obeyed the order. He had gone by the time she ended the call, though, and moments later made yelping noises that an alarmed Scully chased after. (TXF: "War of the Coprophages")
Because Scully felt badly about kennels, she preferred that Queequeg was either left with her mother or with a local dog-sitter, whenever she was required to leave home on a case with Mulder. On a Saturday when these options were unavailable, Queequeg was taken with Scully and Mulder (rather than being left in a kennel) as the agents traveled to Heuvelmans Lake in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains. While Mulder was driving them there in a hired car, Queequeg sat in the car's back seat but became restless, an indication to Scully that the dog needed to relieve itself, so she told Mulder using the phrase "nature's calling." Mulder did not seem to think highly of the dog, referring to Queequeg as "that thing" and implying that he resented its presence, but Scully insisted that he pull the car over and suggested that Queequeg would otherwise make a mess inside the vehicle.
Queequeg finds an unusual boot
After they arrived at Heuvelmans Lake, Scully took the dog for a walk outside on several occasions in the area, always keeping him on an extending lead and tying the lead up whenever the agents went inside to anywhere except cabins where they stayed. On one such walk, the dog ran off while the agents were talking with Sheriff Lance Hindt and Queequeg started to drag Scully towards a position to which she then followed him, before calling her two male colleagues to the same site. The dog lead the investigators to a boot that looked like an imitation monster foot and was covered in blood, strongly suggesting not only that the wearer of the boot, Ted Bertram, had somehow been killed but also that local reports of the legendary Big Blue had been at least partly faked.
Moments prior to death, Queequeg bounds away from Scully
One night, Queequeg was with the agents inside Mulder's cabin while they were examining random photographs taken by victim Ansel Bray mere moments before he had died. The dog sat near the door of the cabin and, when Scully noticed him there, she assumed that he needed to go for the toilet again so she decided to take him for another walk. Outside, Queequeg did not relieve himself, even though Scully impatiently waited for him to do so, but instead barked at woodland nearby and again tugged on his lead, which Scully dropped. The dog immediately scampered away from her, running into the forest and barking, while Scully pursued Queequeg, repeatedly calling his name. Eventually, Scully caught her end of the lead, as it had become caught on the ground, but she consecutively heard whimpering, growling and finally squealing from Queequeg ahead of her, before his end of the lead came lose and retracted back to her. By now in deep shock, Scully found that the slack end of the lead terminated in Queequeg's name tag and collar; he had apparently been eaten. (TXF: "Quagmire")
Legacy
Shortly after Scully lost Queequeg, she returned to Mulder's cabin, where he admitted to being sorry about the dog's fate and she, teary-eyed, had difficulty with concentrating on him talking about the case they were working on, remembering only that he had said sorry.
After they subsequently became stranded on a rock amid the lake, the agents had a long conversation wherein Scully remembered her dog, sorrowfully saying, "Poor Queequeg." Mulder then wondered the reasoning behind the dog's name, so Scully told him why she had chosen it. When she then admitted to having just realized something, Mulder incorrectly guessed her realization was that the name was a strange one for a dog, but she then began to reveal what she had actually realized. An unusually large alligator was eventually discovered by Mulder near the lake, which Mulder and Scully concluded was responsible for the mysterious deaths, including Queequeg's, as well as the monster sightings over the years, and must be Big Blue. However, a plesiosaur-like creature was actually present in the lake, and briefly popped its head above the surface in curiosity before diving back down, though it went unnoticed by the agents. (TXF: "Quagmire")
Queequeg's name tag in 2001.
Shortly before Scully went on maternity leave in 2001, she cleared out Mulder's former desk in the X-files office at the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, taking with her several small personal effects that included Queequeg's old name tag, which had since began to rust. (TXF: "Alone")
In 2016, Queequeg is mentioned by name when Scully sees a dog at the local animal shelter and mentions to Mulder that it reminds her of Queequeg. (TXF: Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster)
Appendices
Background Information
The only episode in which Queequeg is referred to by name is "Quagmire". Similarly, the fact that the dog is depicted as being a Pomeranian is never made mention of, in episode dialogue. In "Quagmire", the or hot spot original inspiration for Queequeg's name - a character from Moby Dick - coincides with him being killed and eaten by a water-faring monster, albeit an alligator instead of a whale.
Despite having been aware of the potential craziness that a dog being killed on television would probably elicit in viewer response, The X-Files' team of writer/producers have since joked that they brought Queequeg back in "Quagmire" just so they could have him be killed in a grisly fashion.