Ian Crouch Newsletter editor

The New Yorker already has a mascot. But, if we were to name an official dog, it might be the smooth fox terrier. It was the beloved breed of the longtime staff writer and editor Roger Angell, who owned several over the years, including one named Harry, whom he once described like this: “Wildly sociable, like others of his breed, he grew a fraction more reserved in maturity, and learned to cultivate a separate wagging acquaintance with each fresh visitor or old pal he came upon in the living room.” Angell took a personal interest in the breed’s public image; his wife Margaret Moorman remembered watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show with him and idly referring to that year’s entry as being cute. “The fox terrier is not cute!” Angell responded. “The fox terrier is dashing!”

Westminster was also fond of the smooth fox terrier, at least in the beginning. The breed won Best in Show the first four years the event was held, from 1907 to 1910—but not once since. The snub was particularly notable in the case of a nationally beloved male named Nornay Saddler, who, by the time of his retirement, in 1940, was among the most successful show dogs of all time. He lost in 1939 to a Doberman and then, a year later, to a cocker spaniel—after which he hung it up, retiring to his owner’s luxurious estate on Long Island.

The New Yorker’s E. J. Kahn, Jr., visited Saddler there, producing a detail-rich Profile that is a celebration of the simple joys of dogs, a wry critique of dog-show culture, and a sharp-eyed look at the obsessive attention and big money that some human owners are inclined to lavish on their pets. Saddler’s owners, a husband and wife, ran a large kennel, home to dozens of smooth fox terriers, and more than twenty other breeds, “ranging from Afghan hounds to French poodles.” Not content to win merely in public, they held annual private shows at home, “with professional judges in attendance and ribbons awarded by themselves to themselves.” Saddler always came out on top.

By the time of his retirement, the pup commanded a stud fee of a hundred dollars, “the highest on record for a fox terrier,” Kahn reported. The other dogs lived in the kennels, but Saddler lived in the big house, where a special room had been built to memorialize his triumphs. Yet, despite all the fuss, Saddler seemed attuned to the normal canine pastimes. He was an avid chaser of leaves, and a fine hunter—of rats, squirrels, the odd cat. “Saddler has not found fame a heavy burden,” Kahn insisted. “He is primarily concerned, like any dog, with eating and sleeping.”