A huge and regal dog greets visitors at the entrance of an exhibition on the fifth floor of The Andy Warhol Museum. He is the same dog that stood guard at the entrance of Andy Warhol's Silver Factory in New York City from 1969-87.

The dog is a Great Dane in a color combination that aficionados of the breed call harlequin, the white fur on his body splashed with big patches of dark brown.

Born in 1921 and dead since 1930, the dog is stuffed, mounted and encased in a protective see-through case that catches the eye and draws people into the exhibition "Canis Major: Warhol's Dogs and Cats (and other party animals)." It runs through May 4.

The dog that Warhol called "Cecil" is the most famous animal in the artist's collection of taxidermy.

Inspired by Warhol's love of animals, the "Canis Major" exhibition features photographs, paintings, screen prints, drawings and videos of animals, including his pets.

The homeless animals housed in the Animal Friends shelter in Ohio Township also are getting the 15 minutes of fame that Warhol predicted everyone will achieve.

A scruffy dog named Peggy Sue, a cat named Patience and a rabbit named Evelyn have had their portraits painted in Warhol's signature style. They're displayed on a wall outside the museum's coffee shop. Visitors can print their own portraits of the Animal Friends animals at workshops in the Warhol's Weekend Factory Program on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m.

"I never met a pet I didn't like," Warhol once wrote. Born in Pittsburgh's SoHo section and growing up in Oakland, he had many pets, according to museum spokesman Rick Armstrong, including a dog named Lucy. His factory had resident cats named Black Lace and White Pussy, and he had more than a dozen Siamese cats over the course of his life.

Warhol's dachshunds, Amos and Archie, accompanied him almost everywhere he went, and they appear in many photographs, including a 1978 photo from High Times magazine in which writer Truman Capote poses with Warhol, who has Archie tucked under his arm. A TV screen in the "Canis Major" exhibit shows a continuous loop of one of the dachshunds playing with toys and with friends of the artist.

Animals were influential in Warhol's artwork, from his famous Cow Wallpaper to various paintings of horses, monkeys, parrots, dogs and fish. In 1954, he published "25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy," a limited edition, hand-colored book with 23 cat portraits. The title was supposed to read "Named Sam," but his mother, who did the lettering, left off the "d," and the title stuck.

Fifteen paintings are mounted on the wall of the "Canis Major" exhibit, including a 1976 painting simply titled "Dog." While it is clearly a dachshund, Warhol paints the dog in blue, mauve and orange, using acrylic and silk screen on linen.

An entire wall is devoted to black and white photographs of people and animals. Many were taken by other artists, including a 1975 photo by Robert Mapplethorpe that shows punk rocker Patti Smith standing next to two photos or paintings of horses.

Display cases offer a potpourri of items that will appeal to animal lovers, including Christmas cards featuring pet photos, models photographed with dogs for Warhol's Interview magazine and decades-old veterinary bills and New York City dog licenses purchased for the dachshunds.

"He saved everything," Armstrong said.

While Cecil, the stuffed Great Dane, has been displayed in numerous locations throughout The Warhol Museum over the years, his current site includes information that solves the mystery of his origins.

In the late 1960s, Warhol purchased the stuffed dog for $300 from an antiques collector who said the dog had been owned by filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille. Warhol believed the story, named the dog Cecil, and gave him a part in his "Factory Diaries" video.

Recent research by canine photographer and genealogist Kerrin Winter-Churchill tells a different story. The dog's real name was Ador Tipp Topp. Whelped on Jan. 14, 1921, in Germany, he was purchased as a puppy by an American who entered him in many U.S. dog shows, including the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Show, where he won the best of breed award. Included in the display cases are Ador's pedigree papers and a certificate that verifies he qualified as an American Kennel Club champion in 1924.

After his death, Ador was sent to a taxidermist who mounted 45 canines for a "dog hall of fame" at Yale University's Peabody Museum. In 1964, a Yale drama student bought 12 of the dogs for $10 each and later sold the Great Dane to the antiques dealer.

And what about the Animal Friends animals in the downstairs portraits? Evelyn the rabbit still needs a home, as do the dozens of other animals housed at the shelter.

"We thought the Warhol exhibit would be Peggy Sue's ticket out of the shelter," said Jolene Miklas, senior marketing coordinator at Animal Friends.

The shaggy dog was in the shelter for more than six months because "she is big, rambunctious and somewhat scruffy-looking. But then Peggy Sue and Patience were adopted while the exhibit was being put together" in January. The portraits "are creating some really great interest in Animal Friends, and the exhibit is casting a great spotlight on our educational program."

Joan McGarry, the museum's schools and studios program coordinator, works with weekend visitors on the art projects. On a recent weekend she was helping children and adults reproduce a portrait of Patience using the "blotted line" technique that Warhol used in illustrations.

"They will have a piece of art suitable for framing," McGarry said. Other visitors have reproduced the Animal Friends pet portraits onto T-shirts and tote bags.

While people worked on their art projects, a screen showed a continuous video of dogs, cats and rabbits at the Animal Friends shelter. Members of the museum staff went to the shelter to shoot "screen tests" of the animals, just as Warhol did for his productions, McGarry said.

The video includes more than a dozen animals, including a one-eared rabbit named Uni, a fluffy husky puppy named Cooper and a cat named Brie.