In the seaside town of Simonstown, near Cape Town, stands a bronze statue of a Great Dane. It honours Just Nuisance, a South African dog and the only dog ever officially enlisted in the Royal Navy.

Born on 1 April 1937 in Rondebosch, Cape Town, the enormous dog was bought by Benjamin Chaney, who managed the United Services Institute in Simonstown. While Chaney worked, the dog wandered freely around the naval base and dockyard, quickly winning over the sailors stationed there.

His name came from an inconvenient habit: his favourite spot was the gangplank, where he blocked people boarding or leaving ships – hence "Nuisance". He also had a taste for adventure, regularly hopping onto trains with sailors and sometimes riding all the way to Cape Town without a ticket.

That habit nearly got him killed. Railway officials warned Chaney that Nuisance would be put down if he kept boarding trains without permission. The Simonstown community rallied and petitioned the Navy, which found an elegant solution: they enlisted him. As an official Able Seaman "JN", he was entitled to rations and a sailor's rail ticket was attached to his collar, so his train rides were now perfectly legal.

Once in uniform, he threw himself into the job. He would often find a drunken sailor on the train and escort him back to his bunk, sometimes helping men who weren't even stationed in Simonstown. He also did his part for morale, attending war-effort fundraising functions, and even had a family, fathering five puppies with another Great Dane, Adinda.

Just Nuisance served at HMS Afrikander, a Royal Navy shore establishment in Simonstown, between 1939 and 1944. He died in 1944 at the age of seven and was buried with full military honours. His funeral procession saw the casket, draped in the Royal Navy White Ensign, pulled on a gun carriage along Simonstown's St George's Street, with a firing party of Royal Marines and a bugler.

A statue was erected in his honour in Simonstown in 1985, and since 2000 an annual parade of Great Danes has chosen a look-alike in his memory – a fitting tribute to a dog whose loyalty and mischief earned him a permanent place in naval history.