Who’s a Good Boy? These Pups from the Past
For as long as dogs have been domesticated, there have been dog lovers. The evidence runs throughout HNOC’s holdings.
By HNOC staff
February 3, 2026
By HNOC staff
In 1884, newspaperwoman Eliza Jane Nicholson was grieving. She had already overcome the death of her husband and taken over editorship of his newspaper, the Times-Picayune, becoming its first female editor-in-chief. She had won the loyalty of the paper’s all-male staff and steered the business out of debt. What brought her low was a matter much smaller in stature but monumental to her heart: the death of her beloved dog, Mat.
Nicholson, who wrote under the pen name Pearl Rivers, published a 12-stanza ode to her beloved pup, which ran in the Times-Picayune on January 20, 1884.
“Only a dog.” You wonder why
I grieve so much to see him die.
Ah, if you knew
How true a friend a dog can be,
And what a friend he was to me,
When friends were few!
Today, we have canine cafes and doggie daycares, but love of pups is nothing new. You can see the evidence throughout our holdings, which showcase very good boys and their handlers throughout Louisiana history—from our state dog, the Catahoula,Opens in new tab to Rodrigue’s Blue Dog,Opens in new tab to the Krewe of BarkusOpens in new tab Carnival parade. Here are some favorites from our collection.
Ernie K-9 and Danny Barkus
The Krewe of Barkus debuted during Carnival 1993 and has become one of the city’s most beloved neighborhood parades, drawing hundreds of dogs and thousands of spectators to the French Quarter annually. This undated image shows two paraders dressed as dogcentric takes on two local legends: Ernie K-Doe (Ernie K-9) and Danny Barker (Danny Barkus).
Crackers and Sherry
HNOC cofounders Kemper and Leila Williams never had children, but Leila doted on her two dachshunds, Crackers and Sherry. In this photo from the late 1940s or early ’50s, she admires the dogs in the courtyard of their residence at 718 Toulouse Street.
George and Mr. Goose
Banjo player, singer, and composer “Creole” George Guesnon poses with his pup, Mr. Goose, in this signed photo given to music collector and historian Bill Russell in 1960.
A Dapper Dog
An especially dapper dog mirrors its human companion’s fashion choices, wearing a bowler hat as it stands on the porch of a house at Belair Plantation in Plaquemines Parish. French-born photographer George François Mugnier, who owned a studio in the French Quarter, took the photograph around the turn of the 20th century; his shadow is visible in the foreground.
the worker’s companion
A dog takes the lead as a group of enslaved workers transport cotton in this first of four panels from William Henry Brown’s collage Hauling the Whole Weeks Pickings (ca. 1840). Dogs played important roles on Southern plantations before the Civil War, helping to herd and protect cattle, control pests, and hunt game. They were also integral to the maintenance of slavery, as they could be trained to track runaways.
Publicity Pup
A dog in a sombrero does double duty shilling for both Krauss Department Store and Fleischman’s Yeast on Mardi Gras Day in 1935.
Gumbo Takes the Field
The New Orleans Saints got their first mascot in 1967, three months before they played their first game. A gift from the Louisiana Restaurant Association, the St. Bernard puppy was an appropriate choice of breed, as it shares a name with the parish just downriver from New Orleans. The team held a contest to name the pooch, and “Gumbo” was chosen out of more than 3,000 entries. Twenty years and four flesh-and-blood Gumbos later, the Saints replaced the dog with a human in a St. Bernard costume.
Alexander and Tiny
John H. Bernhard was a Dutch-born civil engineer and transportation magnate who helped design a number of navigation channels, including the Industrial Canal and the Lake Borgne Canal, in the early 20th century. His son, Alexander, is seen pouting with Tiny the dog in his lap in this snapshot from 1940.
Red, White, and Bulldog
Artist and activist May Stevens’s Big Daddy character, which she featured in a series of works between 1967 and 1976, was a critique of US imperialism and of patriarchal power structures. Stevens often depicted Big Daddy with a bulldog who, like him, has an exaggeratedly bulbous face and a physique that’s more fold and roll than macho muscle.
Connie Boswell: Dog Trainer
Singer Connie Boswell was best-known as part of the New Orleans–born close-harmony group the Boswell Sisters, who became early stars of radio during the 1920s and ’30s. Always an animal lover, Boswell was a hobbyist dog trainer. In this publicity image from 1933, she pets a bright-eyed Great Dane.
French Quarter Watchdogs
The daughter of a dynamite manufacturer, Elizebeth Werlein was a firecracker in her own right and a fixture of 1920s New Orleans. Werlein was a leading voice in the early preservation movement of the French Quarter, and her activism was instrumental in the formation of the Vieux Carré Commission. The preservation watchdog also enjoyed the companionship of her own dogs. This photo shows her with a Borzoi sighthound, a dog breed matching her stature (she was nearly six feet tall) and stately presence.
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