David Muir Marks 53rd Birthday With Instagram Photo of Dog Axel
ABC News anchor David Muir turned 53 on November 8, 2026. The day before, he posted an Instagram photo of his dog Axel, giving fans a rare look at his birthday weekend at his upstate New York lake home, which he bought for $7 million.
ABC News anchor David Muir turned 53 on Sunday, November 8, 2026, and marked the weekend with an Instagram photo of his dog Axel.
Muir is known for guarding his private life. The post offered a rare glimpse of how he spent the days around his birthday.
He shared the picture one day before the birthday. It shows Axel, his German Shorthaired Pointer of seven years, apparently running through a forest covered in autumn leaves.
The close-up shows some white hair around the dog's face. Muir captioned the post with a single fall-colored leaf emoji.
Fans respond
Followers filled the comments. One wrote: "David, you may have the evening news, but this handsome fella looks like he's got a few stories of his own worth reporting!"
Another commented: "He's an adult now with a grey beard." A third wrote that Axel was probably wagging his tail and hoped Muir was enjoying his adventure by the lake.
Homes in Manhattan and upstate New York
Muir is based in Manhattan. He previously owned a townhouse in the West Village, which was reportedly listed for sale in May 2025.
He was born in Syracuse and grew up in Onondaga Hills. He also spends time at a home in upstate New York, on Skaneateles Lake.
Records filed with the Onondaga County Clerk's office in 2019 show he paid $7 million for the property. The house was built in 1890. It covers 4,300 square feet and has six bedrooms, two kitchens, three bathrooms and a fireplace.
Muir has spoken about the pull of the lake. "I'd say my most comfortable element is being outside, covered in mud," he said in an interview in May 2025.
In the same interview he described Axel's biggest weekend event: discovering that a beaver had begun to build a dam inside the little boathouse.
"When you're out there on the lake, smelling the same air that you smelled when you were on your BMX bike back when you were a kid, there's something really fueling about that and connected about it," Muir said. "You just feel like you're home again. I couldn't have been happier."
