Rover is the toy dog at the center of J.R.R. Tolkien’s story Roverandom.
Tolkien wrote the tale in 1925 after his son Michael lost a small toy dog on a beach. In the story, the toy is transformed into a real-looking dog and experiences adventures involving wizards, the Moon, and the underwater world. The narrative began as a story for Tolkien’s children rather than as a work intended for immediate publication.
Roverandom remained unpublished during Tolkien’s lifetime. It was edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond and published in 1998. The story is an important example of Tolkien’s children’s fiction and shows how an ordinary family incident could become the starting point for elaborate mythology.