I’m A Dog Person…Sometimes, by Jenny Bahn

Before last night, I had never before thought twice about what it’s like to be a dog owner in a city.  I also never comprehended why my friend Whitney became super agitated whenever some stranger would squeal and pet her tiny Yorkshire terrier, which was often.  Some stranger would carry on petting the poor animal while Whitney answered the same series of questions: “How old is he/she?” and “Oh!  What’s his/her name?  My dear friend was then forced to respond to such generic flatteries as “He’s/She’s so TINY!” and “What a cutie pie!”  Whitney would stand there, rolling her eyes and chewing on her brown hair, tolerating the entire situation with badly veiled irritation.  This is the only time I see Whitney this grumpy.

Now, all of my life I have had dogs in some capacity.  For lack of a better number, let’s just say there have been eight dogs over the course of my life.  All of these dogs have been indoor pets that sleep all day and walk though a doggy door whenever they want to go outside and do their business wherever they please.  No muss, no fuss.  Just me, a shovel, and a paper bag a couple times a week.  Dog duties complete.

In New York City, there is no such backyard.  Instead of a lawn there is concrete; instead of a nice big shovel with four feet between yourself and some poop, there’s your hand and some plastic bags from Best Buy.  Some guys think of dogs as babe magnets, which I’m sure they are.  In fact, I’ve fallen victim to the old dog-as-babe-magnet trick a few times myself.  But after last night, my only thought is that at multiple points during the day, these pup-wielding gentlemen have to reach down and pick up dog shit.  This is not sexy.  This is an ad for Purell.

This weekend I am dog watching for my new roommate. The dog in question is a tan Puggle named Munchies.  I call her Munch because calling out “Munchies” while walking down a frozen New York sidewalk sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth.  In the future I imagine for myself, my dog will be named something along the lines of Gottfried.  He will have a regal beard and delicate footsteps and he will not make me pick up his poop with my hands because both of us are above that.

Munch and I walk down the street with Morgan and Whitney.  Munch tears off sideways, sticking her nose into wall cracks housing the piss from eight million dogs.  Soon after, she fancies a bathroom break herself and takes a squat.  She is on uneven concrete and I watch the pee roll forward onto her front paw.  As someone who is now living side by side with a New York pet, I try to ignore the fact that this happens nearly every day and if Munch isn’t stepping in her own piss, she’s sure as hell stepping in someone else’s, be it dog or otherwise.  I try to convince myself that her paw will be dry by the time we get home but that’s the equivalent of taking a shower and then toweling off with the bathmat.

Two blocks later and Munch needs to poop.  She is a small dog, so her excrement is manageable.  I take out my plastic bag and give a silent prayer of thanks that I don’t yet have my own dog.  I awkwardly throw the bag in top of a city trashcan stuffed to the brim with garbage already and hope that it doesn’t topple to the ground.

Back when I was at NYU there was a chic couple that used to walk their white Great Dane up and down 5^th Avenue in the mornings.  I used to think this was such an amazing statement of wealth and general fabulousness.  To house a dog that big, you would need a gargantuan apartment.  These people certainly didn’t live in a 10 x 10 studio.  The fact that they were both beyond gorgeous and young did nothing but exacerbate my jealousy of the made up world I envisioned them living from a little deductive reasoning.  But as people say, you can’t have everything for nothing.  That couple might have had a huge amazing apartment across the street from Sarah Jessica Parker, but they also had to pick up huge Great Dane-sized dog shits.  Poop as an equalizer, if you will.

We walk into a party that is taking place at my friend’s clothing store.  Ordinarily, I hate people that bring dogs into clothing stores.  I once saw a woman at a Bloomingdales flipping through cashmere V-necks while the rotten lap dog trailing behind her lifted its leg and took a piss on the marble support column.  Regrettably, I refrained from calling her an ugly, irresponsible human being.  I happened catch the eye of a sales associate who also saw the crime go down, both of us sporting raised eyebrows.  He then told me this happens all the time.  Sick.

Munch catapults forward, her blue leash taut with tension and her long fingernails clacking against the hardwood.  People stare, most often smiling.  Other people bend down from far away to wave to an animal that can’t possible return the gesture.  While I’m not looking, people come up to the dog without asking me if it’s okay that they pet her and I can’t help but wonder if these people never heard their mother’s tell them to not touch strange dogs.  Sure, Munch looks innocent enough, but how the hell do they know she’s not going to bite their face off.  On another note, this also reminds me of what happens to pregnant women.  Weirdos think that just because you’re the size of a house and carrying a “little miracle” they can just place their stranger hands on your tummy and violate your personal space.  Just because your stomach juts further into space for a few months doesn’t grant people molestation rites carte blanche.

Despite the fact that all of the attention is technically of the good variety, it nevertheless makes me feel uncomfortable.  Plus, if this dog decides to just go for bathroom break part deux – which she very well might – everyone is going to be watching it.  Within two days of moving to New York I will forever be known as the girl whose dog took a shit in the middle of that party on Lafayette.  This story of course would be followed by a lot of laughter intermixed with “Ewwww”s.

I resolve to affect calm.  I walk around the men’s section, checking out button ups while I listen to two gay guys on my right carry on an entire conversation about how “that dog” (Munch) reminds them so much of Sam (another dog, I’m assuming).  They do not offer to interact with me or Munch fully, for which I am appreciative, but they are close enough that I feel like maybe I am obligated to engage in conversation about this Sam they speak of.  Instead, I continue to flip through the racks and ignore them as they state that Sam and “that dog” have identical tails and faces.  For a minute I think they are going to accuse me of theft.

Another boy comes up to me and begins to ask me questions about Munch.  Instead of explaining that this is not my dog and I don’t really know all of the details of her existence, I decide to play along and see how well I do.

Boy:  Oh my God!  What a cute little doggie!

Me:  (Obligatory laugh) Yeah.

Boy:  What’s her name?

Me:  Munch.

Boy:  Bunch?

Me:  No, Munch.

Boy:  What a cute name for a dog!

Me:  (Obligatory laugh, less enthusiastic) Thanks.

Boy:  How old is she?

Me:  (Bullshitting)  Four.

Boy:  Cool!  Well, congratulations on having such a cute dog!

Confused, I accept his congratulations because I don’t really know what to do with it otherwise.  Munch isn’t even mine.  I feel like someone taking compliments on a borrowed outfit.  Does that mean I’m not actually cool because I don’t have a dog?  And all this time I was under the impression that I was good enough on my own.

Within twenty minutes, I realize that owning a dog opens you up to nearly 89% more interaction with the general populace, whether you want to partake or not.  You are forced to carry on banal conversations about the same shit over and over and over again until you’d gladly just let the dog run loose into the middle of the street so as to not have to hear the words “cute” or “awwwww” one more time.  All of a sudden, I feel like Whitney.

I leave the party, guiding wayward Munch out from under the feet of people walking in.  I hear a few more squeals and sense more staring.  Being a celebrity must be really boring unless you’re a total narcissist.  Munch and I trot into the cold and when we are halfway home she veers defiantly towards the filthy snow piles on the sidewalk and proceeds to take her second dump of the evening, for which I am grossly unprepared.  I didn’t know dogs this small pooped so much.  Thankfully (kind of), two people standing outside of a candy shop taking a cigarette break watch as this happens.  When I look back with an embarrassed look and ask if they happen to have a plastic bag, the girl says she does and walks inside.

I thank her profusely as she hands me the bag and as I bend over to pick up the shit, explaining that this isn’t my dog as if it really changed the fact that I am here, on a frozen city street, picking up dog shit in front of two strangers.

My roommate comes home tomorrow.  I can’t f’ing wait.

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