Cornelius Agrippa & His Dog.
“After Agrippa’s death, rumors circulated about his having summoned demons. In the most famous of these, Agrippa, upon his deathbed, released a black dog which had been his familiar. This black dog resurfaced in various legends about Faustus, and in Goethe’s version became the ‘schwarze Pudel’ Mephistopheles.”
Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa>
[Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486 – 1535) was a German magician/astrologer/alchemist living at the same time as the historical Faust (approx. 1480 – 1540). The first extant Faust book comes from 1587.]