Thursday, July 28, 2011

About a Dog

I first read about Owney in a children's book that Rebecca found at the library.


When I saw the book, I thought,. "Too many words", but read it at bed time anyway and actually found the "biography" interesting and even endearing.


I had to read it several more times to Rebecca before we returned it.





Owney was a stray that wandered in through the back door of an Albany, NY post office one night in 1888, to get in out of the rain, and because he guarded the bags of mail and the blue suited mailmen, he became a mascot.


One day he jumped on a mail train and traveled all over the country and even up into Canada.


Local papers covered his appearances and the medals, tokens and tags he received on his journey documented his stops.


He made more than one trip.


Later he was even shipped over seas once as an unofficial postal embassader.





You can read Owney's story in this book.


It's really not too may words for a bedtime story.


I kind of envied his freedom to travel and the adventures he had.




I was very excited when I found out that there was a commemorative Owney stamp coming out. It went on sale yesterday.

I bought two sheets.


If your post office doesn't carry it, you can go to USPS.com to order some and have them delivered to your door (along with a lot of other interesting and pretty stamps!)


Owney was stuffed, mounted and now "lives" at the Smithsonian Postal Museum.


Might be fun to make a journey to see him.


He's displayed with his harness full of tags.


Hmmm, he could make an interesting subject for a round robin.


If a dog deco shows up in your mailbox, with instructions to collect a postmark from your local post office, you will know who it's from!
:)







10 comments:

my cup of tea said...

I love this story and had never heard it before! Thank you so much for sharing this! Now I must find the book.
~Donna~

Linda Jo said...

Oh my gosh! I love this. And to think you JUST read the book from the library! I'm ordering some of those stamps....toooo cute!

Sarah said...

What an interesting little story and right up your alley, too.

Unknown said...

I love the picture of him in the doorway of the boxcar. What a great discovery. I will look for those stamps at my p.o.

He even looks a little bit like my bouvier :)

femminismo said...

This is wonderful. I'll send my address privately! Thanks for the book info. I know a boy who might like to hear this one!

Caterina Giglio said...

how wonderful is that! the story and the commemorative!

Dianne said...

What an adorable story... Oh the adventures he must have had!

Jill said...

Sounds good...I'll look in our library too. I do think it's fun to have neat stamps to use on letters.

~*~Patty S said...

great story and how everything is connected...Love that

I am crazy in Love with the newest Forever LOVE stamps...each one is so pretty and as a sheet well....I {heart} them very much!
I must not be the only one...twice the PO has been out of them already!

oxo

ooglebloops said...

Thanks for this. This was an article in the paper about the Smithsonian and Owney - of course I can't find it now - but I went the next day and bought 2 sheets of the stamps. I have a collection of vintage dog licenses that I am going to use and put together something with the sheet of stamps. His end was sad tho - not sure they talk about that in the children's book- (sshhh- don't tell your daughter!)