Cap de la Tete au Chien Lighthouse

The lighthouse was erected as part of a program to improve the lighting from the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Long narrow islands midstream between Saint-Siméon and Rivière-du-Loup divide the St. Lawrence River into a north and south channel. The west and east sides of the south channel were lit by the Brandy Pot Lighthouse and Long Pilgrim Lighthouse. Due to a preference by seagoing ships to use the north channel William Anderson, Chief Engineer of the Department of Marine, during his tour of St. Lawrence River in 1890, recommended a lighthouse to be erected there. Despite commissioning the White Island Lighthouse on the northeast side and Cape Salmon Lighthouse on the southwest side in 1893 and 1894, their light was insufficient.

In 1908 the Marine Department decided to erect a reinforced steel concrete lighthouse tower, wooden fog alarm building, and double dwelling house at Cape Dogs. Construction commensed in 1909 of a lighthouse and shelter of the foghorn. Roadways were blasted out of the rock and an inclined railway was constructed on trestlework for carrying its materials. A powerhouse was built at the landing to run the derrick and trams, and a concrete wall was built at the mouth of a large gorge to create a dam for storing fresh water.

Its design was adopted by the Navy Department quickly because it was economic, easy to build and incombustible. It comprised an octagonal tower surmounted by a circular metal lantern room was constructed high atop the cape, where it had a focal plane of 207 feet. The lighthouse lantern is half the height of the tower. The shelter of the foghorn is made of wood, painted white, on concrete foundations. A third-order, double-flashing Fresnel lens produced the following repeated light signature every five seconds. The original illuminant was petroleum vapour burned under an incandescent mantle, but the light source was converted to electricity in 1952, when the dwellings and buildings at the station were electrified. In 2011, the rotation mechanism for the lens broke, and the Canadian Coast Guard mounted a modern optic on a gallery outside the lantern room that has the same characteristic as the lens, which remains inside the lantern room.

A fog alarm, housed in a building close to the shore, sounded a five-second blast in every fifty seconds when needed. The current fog signal building was built in 1950, but the fog alarm is no longer active.

One of the two residences now standing at the station was built in 1957, and the other was added in 1962, as well as the heliport and the petrol tanks in the late 1950s also. The caretaker's house is square plan, made of wood on concrete foundations, its siding is white and the gable roof covered with red asphalt shingles. The keeper's assistant is a standard and rectangular in plan.

Keepers: Ludger Bergeron (1909 – 1931), A. Tremblay (1931 - 1932) Kelly Guerin (1932 - at least 1937).