New York is a strange place for dogs. As I walked back from an early morning art-world breakfast — black coffee and untouched fruit, untouched granola — the apartment buildings of the Upper East Side were disgorging perfectly groomed hounds and their staff for their walks in Central Park. I’m used to south London dog-walking, the shuffling between apology for our puppy, the avoidance of Staffies and the odd five-minute conversations with other park-goers.
It is shambolic. I think of the Pont cartoon of ‘the British love for dogs’ — the total displacement of human life by a motley, shaggy array of dogs — and see a great cultural difference. This anthology confirms the difference. These New Yorker dogs make jokes about Frank Gehry, psychoanalysis, politics, self-identity and blogging. Many of the dogs are on couches. Not sagging Home County Chesterfields but good Park Avenue Woody Allen couches. ‘And only you can hear this whistle?’ asks the shrink of the dog.
The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs is large and heavy and comes with a lugubrious Thurber bloodhound on its crimson cover.
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