E Pluribus Canis
Memo to Residents of Ruppert Towers, 90-92 Streets, between 2nd & 3rd Avenues. Please note: the Constitution of the United States does not guarantee your right to a pet. Dog owners vs. non-dog owners are seemingly in a perpetual state of dispute in NYC, but the levels sometimes jump a bit, as is happening now on the Upper East Side. City living is hard enough sometimes, without having to regard the sidewalks as a minefield of dog feces, cope with hours of barking from lonely pets (often enough the really annoying small yappy kind), or otherwise deal with dog owners who seem very often to forget that the city is not built to accommodate the needs of our animal pals without the active participation of their human companions. Every building has rules regarding cleaning expenses, notification to the landlord, and the living conditions of non-dog owners need to be balanced with those who want a pet. Dog-walkers? Have you ever seen them? One person harnessed to a dozen or more dogs with very little hope of controlling all of them all the time. Often enough these entrepreneurs do little more than gather their charges, rope them to a light pole, and go have a coffee. I think if you can’t afford the time to walk your own dog, you aren’t sufficiently responsible to own one. Get a cat. Or a fish. Or a picture of a dog. Spaying or neutering your animal is also an act of responsibility. Dog breeding is an archaic practice that lately seems to cause as much harm to the animal as benefit to, face it, your aesthetic sense. With the exception of a few working breeds, most are a half-assed form of genetic manipulation purely for the look, and if you’ve got a working dog in NYC, you’d better be on the K-9 squad of the NYPD. Otherwise, well, you’ll never win at Westminster, so off to the ASPCA, now. As for that Maltese divorce: I think it would be wise for those involved not to have children.