Owney, the Post Office Dog

Smithsonian Institution Owney, the unoffical postal mascot, wore a jacket with mail tags. Though he was only a mutt, Owney endeared himself as a worldwide traveling postal mascot.

Dear Diary:

The other day I was in the post office near my Midtown apartment to buy stamps.

I asked the clerk if they were still selling the stamps of the dog. “The one that looks like a mutt,” I added.

“Do you mean Owney?” the clerk asked. “The post office mascot?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“It's Owney,” she said. “We stopped selling those. Bu t he was quite a dog.”

“He was?” I asked.

“Well, sure,” she said. “In the 1800s he traveled with the mailmen. He won all sort of awards. He had celebrations in his honor…”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, incredulously.

“I read about it,” she said. In a lower voice, she asked me, “And do you know how Owney died?”

“No.”

“He went crazy. And one day he attacked some mail carriers. And then they shot him. Dead. A bullet to the head. Bang! Just like that!”

“Wait,” I said, trying to take this all in. “You mean the post office dog went postal?”

“That's right,” the clerk said.

By now a line had formed behind me.

“I'll just take the flag stamps,” I said.

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