In the early Nineteen Forties, a scrappy canine named Throckmorton arrived at Union. Attached to the Navy’s V-12 College Training Program, which was designed to extend the numbers of commissioned naval officers throughout World War II, the canine instantly bonded with the campus neighborhood.
By July 1944, the Concordiensis on its front-page declared Throckmorton because the official College mascot. The paper even launched a penny drive to pay for a collar, license and rabies vaccination.
Charger, a crimson fox Labrador retriever launched final fall as Union’s new mascot
A yr later, nonetheless, amid complaints about Throckmorton’s overzealous habits, the canine discovered itself at risk of being reassigned.
“I had a habit of chasing everyone not in Navy blue,” Throckmorton wrote in an impassioned plea for mercy within the Concordiensis.
“I’m not sorry for chasing anyone, because the ones I chased who rate an apology don’t need one since they understand and the only sorrow I express to the ones who claim I bit them is that I didn’t. I would have stopped chasing people, if given a chance. Why, I chased the dean every morning and afternoon and twice on Sundays and all I got was a scolding and an understanding pat on the head.”
Throckmorton is amongst many four-legged creatures featured in a brand new exhibit, “Dogs All Over the Place: A Brief History of Union College Canines,” now on show within the Lally Reading Room in Schaffer Library.
Dogs have been a ubiquitous presence on campus for many years. Besides Throckmorton, the grounds have been graced with Heidi and Ginger (information dogs for Charles Waldron, Class of 1906 and longtime Union administrator) to recent presidential pets Winston, Hershey and Teddy, to Jenna, Union’s first remedy canine.
The relationship between dogs and the campus has been an uneasy one. In response to the variety of dogs roaming the campus and the waste left behind, within the early Nineteen Seventies the school created a canine court docket. Fines of $50 had been imposed on those that did not register their dogs with Campus Safety.
And the title of the exhibit takes its identify from a 1984 headline within the Concordiensis about one other crackdown on dogs “infiltrating the library and classrooms, barking outside of classrooms, roaming in packs across campus… and even attacking people on campus.” The crackdown included periodic visits to campus by the town’s animal management officers to spherical up unregistered dogs.
Decades later, in April 2013, Union instituted a office coverage relating to the presence of pets in College-controlled buildings and open area areas, recognizing “the benefits of having a pet in the workplace while remaining respectful of others.”
Throckmorton, described as essentially the most broadly identified of Union’s many campus dogs, runs with the Navy’s V-12 College Training Program on Rugby Field within the Nineteen Forties.
In addition to specializing in dwell dogs, the exhibit additionally options choices from the College’s uncommon books assortment, together with Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and “A Dog’s Tale” by Mark Twain. Recent works by Union college, similar to Chad Orzel’s “How to Teach Physics to Your Dog” and Jordan Smith’s “Cold Night, Long Dog,” are additionally highlighted.
The exhibit’s curator, Joseph Lueck, outreach and reference archivist for Special Collections and Archives, stated the exhibit coincides with the campus’s latest canine movie star, Charger, a crimson fox Labrador retriever launched final fall as Union’s new mascot.
“The exhibit celebrates Charger’s arrival and explores the long history of dogs on campus,” stated Lueck. “In his introductory speech for Charger the mascot and Charger the dog, President Harris mentioned several beloved campus dogs that have graced the Union grounds with their presence over the years. This introduction sparked our curiosity, and we began our research.”
Meanwhile, the destiny of Throckmorton stays a thriller. The solely canine to get its personal entry within the authoritative “Encyclopedia of Union College History,” Throckmorton didn’t depart with out a struggle.
“I appreciate the help and consideration given me by the many people who tried their best to give me another chance, and I’m even willing to bury the hatchet with those who didn’t,” the canine pleaded within the Concordiensis.
The exhibit runs by way of March 25.
