September 19, 2018

The Border Terrier is a familiar breed to foxhunters, especially in the sheep farming districts of England and Scotland. They were bred on the English-Scottish Border to run with the foxhound packs. When the fox went to ground the Border Terrier would go in and bark so the men knew where to dig. But did you know that a Border Terrier named Owney was the first nationwide mascot of the United States Postal Service? Owney reigned for nine years, from 1887 to mid-1897, traveling over 140,000 miles throughout the forty-eight states and around the world.

Owney belonged to a clerk at the Albany post office who often brought the dog to work. He seemed to love the smell of mail bags and slept on them whenever he was there. The clerk eventually quit the post office, but knowing that the dog seemed happiest with the mail bags, he left him beind. The postal employees in Albany soon discovered that Owney didn’t want to leave the bags when they were loaded onto the trains, so he was allowed to travel with them.