Walking past the dog run at Washington Square Park I overheard a conversation between two dog owners:
“Oh I’m so sorry,” said the woman. “For both of you. Because it’s just so upsetting when anything happens to them.”
She was talking about the man’s dog, who appeared to have some minor lacerations to his face due to a dog fight. It wasn’t clear who started it.
“Yes,” he replied. Looking hangdog himself. “He had to wear a cone for a few days.”
Before coming to New York I often remember reading in the editors' bios of certain publications I liked: “Lives in Brooklyn with his wife and dog.” There were of course variations on this; either a different borough or gender (she lives with her husband etc) but the dog was a constant. The dog, or sometimes a cat, seemed to have replaced kids.
Pup Culture is just around the corner from our Soho sublet. It’s a thriving doggy daycare, which seems to offer somewhere to park puppies all day, where they get to run around with other puppies in a pen and staff clean up their piss and keep them from humping each other or fighting, too much.
In a clever business move two large windows look into this pen from the street, drawing attention to the daycare and bored staff member on duty, who hang out all day with a spray bottle and roll of paper towels. They do bend down from time to time to give the pups a bit of a pat or rough house and every now and then emerge with a few on a leash to stretch their legs around the block.
The dog biscuits at Trader Joes (super market) look so good in this town I’ve almost gone to reach for a packet, twice now.
