Entertainment

A final bow-wow

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The New York Philharmonic just lost its most dogged fan — and no, it’s not Alec Baldwin. For 17 years, long before the actor began narrating the orchestra’s broadcasts, the Phil’s mascot, greeter and stress-reliever was a black terrier named Jake.

Up until his death earlier this month, the canine companion of stagehand Rich Norton was known around the world as “Jake the Philharmonic Dog,” thanks to the 2006 children’s book he inspired.

“When I met Jake patrolling the halls, I thought he’d be the perfect music teacher for young children,” says author Karen LeFrak, whose tale takes Jake through every section of the orchestra up to the podium, where he runs off with a baton.

Although that last bit didn’t really happen, LeFrak still had plenty to draw on.

Jake had his own Philharmonic ID, and charmed schoolkids and Secret Service agents alike. He cozied up to guest artists like Garrison Keillor, who called him “a friendly dog with heroic qualities, like Snoopy, Toto, Nana and Old Yeller.”

Of course, it wasn’t Snoopy who waited in the wings, where Itzhak Perlman and other soloists could pat him before they took the stage, as they did with Jake. Not even the formidable Phil conductors Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur could resist reaching down from the podium to pet him.

Jake even had his own formalwear.

“He looked like he was in a tux all the time, with black and silver markings,” says Norton, who found Jake 17 ½ years ago — in a box on the side of a road.

“We were driving out of state and I said, ‘Is that a ‘Free puppy’ sign we just passed?’ ” recalls his wife, Susie. “And Rich said, ‘We’re not getting a dog!’ ”

But she persisted. They stopped and while he stayed in the car, she reached into the box and pulled out a small ball of black fluff.

“Just take a look at him!” she ordered her husband.

“We made eye contact, and my heart melted,” Rich recalls. “We were inseparable ever since.”

The puppy was the size of his palm, and just a few weeks old. His wife wanted to name him Mr. GG, Norton says, but he insisted on something more masculine, and Jake it was.

Susie Norton managed the Smashing Pumpkins back then and traveled a lot, so they decided that Rich — who logs 16-hour days, setting up and striking the stage — would take Jake to work. Before long, the dog was everywhere, wagging his paintbrush of a tail.

“He knew every nook and cranny of Avery Fisher Hall,” says the Phil’s concertmaster of 33 years, Glenn Dicterow. “He was friendly, warm, smart as the dickens — and everybody’s best friend.”

Some orchestra members can’t remember a time when the terrier wasn’t there.

“When I started there four seasons ago, I saw this adorable dog with amazing ears standing in the hallway,” recalls Sara Griffin, the Phil’s assistant principal librarian. “I said, ‘Who is that dog?’ ” A stagehand told her, adding that Jake was famous. “A famous dog?” she marveled.”

In addition to being the subject of two children’s books — he was featured in LeFrak’s sequel “Jake the Ballet Dog” — Jake also appeared on “Sesame Street” as an animation introducing the letter “M.”

A car accident eight years ago cost Jake his tail, but his need to meet and greet never flagged. Griffin recalls hearing the tick-tick-tick of paws in the fourth-floor library. It was Jake — he’d taken the elevator up several floors, as he sometimes did, to go looking for his master.

But 17 years is a long time for any dog, no matter how famous. Jake had trouble breathing, and on July 18, the heartbroken Nortons finally let him go. They never did find out exactly what kind of terrier he was, though one of those “trace your dog’s ancestry” analyses said he was part Saluki, part boxer — “two things,” Rich Norton says, “he’s definitely not.”

Of course he wasn’t: Jake was a Philharmonic dog.

pets@nypost.com