Welcoming Duke
Earlier this year we said goodbye to Elwood. We knew we would want another big dog in our life, but the wound was fresh.
Well, time has healed our pain, and a friend of ours spotted this handsome boy in need of a forever home. And today, he found it. Ours.
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Meeting the Duke on Sunday
Five months ago we said goodbye to Elwood, our nine year old great dane. His health had been in decline for a while and he finally crossed into the realm of suffering more than we were able to help with, and so we sent him off across the rainbow bridge.
We always knew we'd be bringing another big dog into our house, eventually. And a month or so ago we realized we were ready for another.
Earlier this week, a friend of ours, sent over a 2 year old Dane in Petfinder. We've made contact and will be going to see 'Duke' on Sunday. He's a big boy, even bigger than Elwood. E was roughly 120lbs, and Duke is reportedly 170lbs.
I can't wait. Fingers crossed.
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As Elwood ages, I am reminded daily how much I am going to struggle when his time comes to cross the rainbow bridge. The biggest downside of the big dogs is their comparative short lives, we knew that when we adopted him. But it is still going to wreck me when the day comes.
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Hear me out. I want a dog bed which has an attached chaise lounge. Same fabric, same furniture piece. Just give me a place to chill with a supported back next to the dogs on the bed with me.
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Owney the dog
I stumbled on this story very literally by coincidence. I saw someone post about the Smithsonian Institute putting millions of images online for free, so I went to check it out.
My first search? "dog"
Well, actually, it was "dogs" because I imagined millions of pictures of dogs to scroll through. But I quickly realized this wasn't the case and that I should just do the singular. The results were varied, from dog bones, to paintings, to photos and more, I scrolled through them. On one page, I saw this poorly taxidermied dog named 'Owney.' Well, alright then.
To be honest, I scrolled past it, and kept surfing for a bit. Soon enough though I decided to try another search: 'Seattle.' I have a love for my adopted home's history and was curious to see what was in the Smithsonian for it. And, the first five results are all labeled as "Owney tags."
I had not internalized the dog's name above, and I was curious what 'Owney' referred to. I googled "Owney tag" and was brought to this story on the Smithsonian's website. I'm not sure what I had expected, but this was definitely not it.
Owney was a scruffy mutt who became a regular fixture at the Albany, New York, post office in 1888. His owner was likely a postal clerk who let the dog walk him to work. Owney was attracted to the texture or scent of the mailbags and when his master moved away, Owney stayed with his new mail clerk friends. He soon began to follow mailbags, first onto mail wagons and then mail trains. Owney began to ride with the bags on Railway Mail Service (RMS) trains across the state . . . and then the country! The Railway Mail Service clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot.
Postal workers and others began to mark Owney’s travels by placing tokens, tags, and medals on his collar. These items included baggage check and hotel room key tokens, dog licenses, and numerous items given to the dog by a variety of individuals and organizations. Owney received so many tags on his trips that their weight around his neck began to weigh the poor dog down. After Postmaster General John Wanamaker heard of this problem, he had a harness made for the dog that could be used to display the tags more evenly over Owney’s body while he traveled. Occasionally a postal worker would collect several of the tags and send them to the Albany post office or the Post Office Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Owney even got to go on a world tour courtesy of Tacoma:
In 1895 the Tacoma, Washington, postmaster sent Owney on a trip around the world as part of an advertising campaign for the city. The dog traveled with mailbags on steamships and trains from Tacoma through Asia, the Middle East, and the continental US before returning to Tacoma 113 days later.
I have to admit I kind of feel bad for the poor dog. I'm sure he was taken care of, but world travel was not exactly the lap of luxury in 1895. Owney was eventually put down in 1897, as he had become hard to manage and was prone to biting handlers.
However his story continued on including being put on display, as well as having a children's book written about his adventures around the world (largely fictionalized I suspect) as well as having a commemorative stamp created. The stamp was made in conjunction with the museum as they had an exhibit to Owney. Here's an article about it in the Smithsonian magazine.
When I initially came across Owney, I was excited thinking I had uncovered this oddity in the collection. I should have known it wouldn't be. And in fact, I find it all a bit silly and over the top. However, I just found the confluence of my two random searches intersecting like they did to be entertaining and worth a quick blog entry.
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Elwood's First Night, in His Words
The following post was originally shared on Facebook, captured here for archival purposes. With small grammatical updates and fixes.
The story of Elwood's first night. As told by Elwood himself:
Moving is always traumatic, even for you humans. Now imagine that your life hasn't been that great, you ate only what you could scrounge and you had to fight for that. You were most likely hit. And you weren't given love.
That is a dark thing. A very dark place. Something which changes you.
Now, imagine that suddenly one day you are taken away from there. Given a bath. Prodded by someone strange. And only given some food. Granted, you're not fighting for it, but surely this won't last.
And then, you're in the hands of another person. A man. He holds you close and warms you in the cold air. It's nice there. It's easy to sleep.
After several hours dozing in laps of him and her, you're brought into this warm but bright place. It smells weird. Different. There's another dog here, hopefully she's friendly but in general she seems put offish.
They're saying words. It sounds nice. They sound nice. But I don't know yet. This is all strange.
The big one gives me food, small bits of meat. Turkey. That's nice.
After a while he picks me up and puts me in this crate. I begin to panic. It's confining and I'm by myself. I don't like this. I begin to cry and whine in hopes someone will come save me. And then, in my panic, I void my bowels. Oh it stinks. And I don't have anywhere to go. I cry louder.
The man returns, and lets me out. He's kind again even though the other person would have been mean. He wasn't.
I was put under warm water and rinsed, cleaned off and then dried of any filth. Then the crate was brought into the bedroom and I was set next to Mattie. And yet I was still alone. I heard noise but it was odd and didn't comfort me.
And then he returned, this time laying on the floor in front of me. I wasn't sure of this all, so I kept whining. But when I did he would reach his fingers through the grate and speak kind to me. Eventually I calmed and we all slept.
Our first night wasn't as smooth as it could be. Cleaning dog poop off a towel is not a great wee hour task. But it's what you sign up for with a puppy.
Sleeping on the floor with Elwood was good. I slept fine. I plan to sleep next to him again tonight.
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