No Ordinary Great Dane

Saxon is no ordinary dog. As Dana Adams Schmidt reported in the Oct. 11, 1970, edition of The Sunday Times, it’s not that the 120-pound Great Dane “is unaware of being a dog. It is just that he has never doubted that he has equal rights with people.”

Saxon found himself at the center of controversy when, upon traveling from Beirut to Washington, D.C., his family insisted that he should fly alongside the airplane’s passengers. At the time, rules permitted only dogs weighing up to 11 pounds to ride with the passsengers, but Saxon’s owners struck a deal with flight crews after providing them with an exhaustive list of compelling reasons to let him on the plane (including referencing an instance in which a lion died of fright while being flown to London in the cargo hold). In the end, Saxon was not only able to fly with the rest of the passengers, but he and his owner flew first class (so as not to disturb the other passengers).

This photograph is from The New York Times “morgue” — the basement repository in Times Square where approximately six million pictures are stored. It is one of the oldest, largest and most comprehensive libraries in the world, with photos dating back to the turn of the last century. It’s also a working archive — its black-and-white photographs are used every day for the newspaper. To maintain the historical integrity of the image, the photograph is reprinted in its original hard-copy condition, showing cropping indicators, reference numbers and airbrushing by retouchers to highlight specific areas.