‘Mail pouch pooch’ was a post office icon

Owney was a scruffy puppy who found his way into the Albany, N.Y., Post Office on a drizzly fall day in 1888. A back door to the building had been left ajar. 

A bit later, a mail clerk discovered the young dog sound asleep on a heap of mailbags. The cinnamon-colored dog, who was an Irish-Scottish border terrier mix, was attracted to something about those mailbags. Perhaps it was the texture of the fabric or the scent. 

Sandy Hingston, senior editor at “Philadelphia” magazine, believes the name of the postal clerk who discovered the mutt was Owen. When the stern supervisor asked “whose dog is this?” the crew replied that “Owen’s his owner.” 

That’s as good of an explanation as any as to how the dog got the name Owney, Hingston said. The postal workers begged that Owney be allowed to stay. The boss man acquiesced. 

Thus, the little dog with a “friendly demeanor” became the “adorable, furry-faced mascot” of the Albany Post Office. Owney actually ran the place, barking orders. Really. 

As the clerks sorted the mail, Owney barked once for “out-of-town” mail and twice for “local delivery” letters. Three barks meant it was time for “lunch.” 

His fame escalated as he became known as “the mail pouch pooch.” When the mail moved, Owney moved with it, riding the mail wagon to and from the train depot.

 

Once, Owney reportedly saw a mail pouch fall out of the wagon. When the driver reached his destination and determined that a pouch and a pooch were missing, postal workers were dispatched on a search and rescue mission. 

All was well. Owney was found lying atop the missing mailbag in the road, guarding it until it could be retrieved by someone from the post office wearing an “official blue wool uniform.” 

Owney’s reward, in effect, was a promotion. The Albany postal workers consented to allow Owney to see the U.S.A., riding with the Railway Mail Service. They bought him a leather collar and affixed an identification tag: “Owney, Post Office, Albany, NY.” 

They asked railway mail clerks to obtain baggage tags to identify the railroads traveled and the communities visited by Owney. 

Owney’s song, written by Stephen Michael Schwartz and performed by Trace Adkins tells us: “Everywhere he goes in this great big nation, Owney gets a token of appreciation.” 

It got to the point that Owney had so many medallions attached to his collar, they “jingled like sleigh bells.” 

U.S. Postmaster General John Wanamaker presented Owney with a little jacket, so the tokens could be pinned on, more evenly distributing the weight. 

In service now as the “official postal service mascot,” Owney visited every state in the union and toured the world, collecting 1,017 medals and tokens in all. Railway mail clerks loved having Owney ride their train. He was a good luck charm. None of “Owney’s trains” ever had a wreck. 

Owney was set to retire in 1897, but one last official visit took him to Toledo, Ohio. It was not a happy ending. The circumstances are cloudy, but Owney was apparently chained to a post inside the postal station. Toledo Gazette blogger Lou Hebert, wrote that “Owney detested being restrained and starting protesting loudly.” Owney allegedly nipped the clerk on the hand. 

Toledo Postmaster C. Rudolph Brand ordered that Owney be put down on June 11, 1897. Railway mail clerks chipped in money to have a Toledo taxidermist preserve Owney’s body, so the canine postal hero could be viewed at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.