Suddenly, the Sliwas were interrupted by a very loud shirtless man wearing athletic shorts and wireless headphones, who ran through the assembled gaggle, apparently on his morning jog. \u201cClean up 110th Street! There is dog shit all over the street!\u201d he yelled, clapping his hands for emphasis. \u201cClean up the dog shit, Curtis!\u201d Neither Sliwa acknowledged the interloper, but his contribution felt relevant.<\/p>\n
\nMayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa held a press conference to decry conditions at Animal Care Centers of New York City. (Holly Pretsky)<\/p>\n
Dogs, New York City\u2019s most visible pets, are an inescapable part of public life. They fill our parks, poop on our sidewalks, pee on our trees, pant next to our al fresco tables, bark at us on the train. Whether we own one or not, we find them in our workplaces, our gyms, our apartment buildings. We read daily headlines about the conflicts they cause and about the abuse they are subject to. As Sliwa noted, many New Yorkers think of them as family members, and more specifically, as their children. As attitudes about dogs\u2019 proximity to personhood continue to shift, the law \u2013 and the elected officials who write the laws \u2013 are coming to view them as a constituency of sorts, one deserving of substantial public resources.<\/p>\n
There is no official city dog census, but the most recent New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, taken in 2023, found that about 530,000, or 15%, of New York City households had a dog. An average of about 85,000 dogs have been licensed in the city each year for the past decade, with a notable spike during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Pet ownership is indisputably an economic force. Americans are expected to spend $157 billion on pet products and services this year, according to the American Pet Products Association \u2013 a figure that continues to climb despite economic uncertainty. On the apartment rental platform StreetEasy, 76% of New York City apartments now allow pets, up from 72% last year, and \u201cPets allowed\u201d was the third most-searched amenity behind in-unit laundry and a dishwasher. There are already at least two luxury dog clubs<\/a> in New York City, with another Los Angeles-based company, Dog Ppl, slated to open one in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the late fall. Perks of membership include manicured lawns, training and grooming, Wi-Fi and coffee and cocktail bars (for humans). Dog owners are increasingly likely to travel with their pets \u2013 enough to support a pricey dog-centered airline called Bark Air<\/a> that launched last year and is based in New York.<\/p>\n At least one dog is present in the halls of power. First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro recently adopted Kato, a standard poodle mix, who is now running around City Hall making the mayor jealous. \u201cThere\u2019s no greater loyalty than in a dog,\u201d Mayor Eric Adams recently said. \u201cI want a dog so bad, but being mayor, you know, dogs like a lot of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA pet such as a dog is not just a thing\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n New York City has long grappled with how to manage dogs \u2013 and things used to be dire. In the late 1800s, as the forces of industrialization pushed animals and humans into extremely close urban quarters, feral and pet dogs alike freely roamed the streets. As historian Ernest Freeberg writes in \u201cA Traitor to His Species,\u201d a biography of animal rights pioneer Henry Bergh, there was no system to sterilize dogs until the 1930s and no way of warding off fleas. People feared that the intense heat of July and August \u2013 \u201cdog days of summer\u201d \u2013 caused the packs of dogs teeming throughout the city to go mad with a terrifying disease that was then called \u201chydrophobia.\u201d (The origin and transmission of rabies was still a mystery then.)<\/p>\n The city was desperate to control its dog population, and its solution was brutal. Every summer, groups of boys and men rounded up dogs and brought them to a crowded pound where they were held for a day or two in case an owner might show up to claim them. After that, the remaining dogs were crammed into an iron cage 50 at a time and submerged in the East River for 10 minutes. Hundreds of dogs could be killed this way in a single afternoon.<\/p>\n Even Bergh, who founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, acknowledged the need to curb the dog population, and he actually advocated for the river drowning method as the most humane. But he also initiated a cultural conversation in which we continually assess to what extent animals can experience suffering, and what trappings of personhood are owed to them.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go back maybe 150 years, dogs really throughout the United States were essentially indistinguishable from property, from a piece of furniture, for example,\u201d said Christopher Berry, executive director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, which advocates for animals\u2019 legal rights. \u201cNew York actually really led the way with anti-cruelty laws and Henry Bergh in the late 1800s, so that\u2019s where the legal status really starts to change.\u201d<\/p>\n In more recent decades, both the courts and lawmakers have inched animals further along on the spectrum of legal status from \u201cobject\u201d toward something more like \u201cperson.\u201d In 1979, after an animal hospital lost a dog\u2019s corpse, Queens Civil Court Judge Seymour Friedman ruled<\/a> that the dog\u2019s owner was owed damages beyond just the market value of the dog. As Friedman wrote, \u201ca pet such as a dog is not just a thing.\u201d Since 1996, New York\u2019s estate laws have allowed people to leave behind a trust to provide care for their pet. And since 2021, state law requires judges<\/a> to consider the best interest of pets in divorce custody proceedings, reasoning that, \u201cfor many families, pets are the equivalent of children.\u201d<\/p>\n In July 2023, a woman crossing a Brooklyn street watched in horror as a car rounded the corner and crushed the dog she was walking. In a landmark June decision<\/a>, state Supreme Court Justice Aaron Maslow ruled that the dachshund named Duke should be considered a family member rather than property and that emotional distress damages were owed. (The driver has appealed.)<\/p>\n A flurry of recent proposed legislation reflects the evolving view that our pets are members of our community in their own right. A City Council bill<\/a> introduced last year by Council Member Shaun Abreu would expand paid leave to people who need to miss work to care for their sick pet. City Council Member Bob Holden introduced a bill<\/a> to establish a pilot food pantry for pets. The Protecting Animals Walking in the Street (PAWS) Act, sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, would increase penalties<\/a> for drivers who hit a pet. This year, the state Senate passed a package<\/a> of bills that would, among other things, raise the maximum prison time for animal cruelty. In 2024, the city Department of Homeless Services, together with the Urban Resource Institute, piloted<\/a> a homeless shelter that allowed pets. Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal has a bill<\/a> that would declare that animals entitled to humane treatment under the law and can therefore be victims of crimes. \u201cThe Legislature finds and declares that animals are sentient beings,\u201d her proposed bill says.<\/p>\n Dog fights<\/strong><\/p>\n Dogs can have many benefits for city dwellers. They\u2019re a balm for their owners\u2019 mental health and they get people walking outside, improving physical health and getting more eyes on the street, which contributes to a greater sense of public safety. In a city full of AirPods zombies who only talk to people they\u2019ve previously arranged to meet on an app, dogs are one of the best vectors of spontaneous connection we have.<\/p>\n But they can also be the nexus of some pretty extreme neighborhood drama.<\/p>\n In May, two pit bulls named Rambo and Zooey attacked a Chihuahua mix named Penny on the Upper West Side. Penny\u2019s guardian said both pit bulls lunged at Penny, and one chomped on her and refused to let go as multiple other bystanders piled on to try to pry their jaws apart. Penny required surgery, the pit bull owner was evasive and the community was in an uproar. \u201cThe result of Joey Columbus\u2019 two dogs biting, ostensibly, Lauren\u2019s Chihuahua, that set people off,\u201d said Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer, naming the two owners she\u2019s now spent countless hours thinking about. \u201cAnd we ended up, I think we had 500 or 600 people, maybe more, at Goddard Riverside two days later,\u201d Brewer said of the ensuing town hall. It turned out that Rambo and Zooey were accused of<\/a> previously attacking and killing another dog. The attacks inspired legislation from Queens Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar that would create new criminal offenses<\/a>: negligent handling of a dog and reckless handling of a dog. \u201cRight now in New York, if your dog mauls another dog, there\u2019s almost no penalty,\u201d Rajkumar said. \u201cNegligent owners walk away while innocent dogs sometimes die.\u201d<\/p>\n The Penny situation was just one recent clash. Any New Yorker knows what you mean when you refer to \u201cthe Central Park birdwatching incident<\/a>,\u201d which notoriously involved a frantic dog owner and spurred a reckoning over racism during the heart of the COVID-19 lockdown. A couple years after that, the Park Slope neighborhood was divided<\/a> over how law enforcement should get involved after a man who seemed to be homeless and dealing with mental illness struck a leashed dog with a staff in Prospect Park, and the dog, Moose, later died. \u201cIt was tragic,\u201d said City Council Member Shahana Hanif, whose district includes the park, three years later. \u201cIt is something that I, like, I think about, you know, I can\u2019t just leave it behind, and it should have never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n More common are the minor squabbles and complaints that come with living in such close quarters: barking and poop. There are many, many people who do not wish to be living in a city of dogs. That is evident in a few recent headlines: \u201cNew Yorkers are turning on dogs; what\u2019s a dog owner to do?<\/a>\u201d New York Groove asked last spring. \u201cWhy Does Everyone Hate My Dog? In a city bubbling over with rage, pets \u2013 and their owners \u2013 are enemy No. 1<\/a>\u201d declared an essayist in The Cut around the same time. \u201cDog Parks Are Barely Holding This City Together<\/a>,\u201d wrote Curbed last summer.<\/p>\n The dog mayor<\/strong><\/p>\n In late January in front of City Hall, Simon, a basset cattle dog, took the oath of office<\/a>. His inauguration as New York City\u2019s second dog mayor was attended by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, then a long-shot mayoral candidate. (In a vivid snapshot of the times, the very online dog mayor election was marred<\/a> by a cryptocurrency scandal.) The title is honorary, and Simon has no official duties, but the existence of a dog mayor does point to a legitimate governance question the city has struggled to answer: Who is in charge of the dogs of New York?<\/p>\n The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issues dog licenses and oversees dog shelters, while the Department of Sanitation responds to dog poop complaints and issues fines, the Parks and Recreation Department builds dog runs and the NYPD responds to abuse calls. The city contracts with Animal Care Centers of New York City to run the shelter system. \u201cWhat I had found was that each agency had sort of an unlisted animal guy, but typically their official role was something completely unrelated,\u201d said City Council Member Justin Brannan. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Oh yeah, talk to Joe at DOT, he really likes animals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, Brannan passed a bill<\/a> to establish the Mayor\u2019s Office of Animal Welfare with the intention of bringing the city\u2019s animal-related concerns into one portfolio. Initially, Brannan proposed a full-fledged city department for animals, but the bill was watered down to a single office \u2013 the first in the nation \u2013 which is now staffed with just one (very dedicated) person and has a budget of less than $100,000. Sliwa, the Republican mayoral nominee, is proposing an \u201cagency in the basement of City Hall\u201d dedicated to animal welfare. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a whole agency, rapid response, to deal with all animal-related issues,\u201d Sliwa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The dog oversight question extends to one of their biggest imprints on city infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city\u2019s 91 dog runs are currently maintained by volunteers and community groups. The parks department will not build a dog run unless there is already an established group committed to taking care of it. In 2022, Brooklyn City Council Member Lincoln Restler dealt with the outbreak of a disease<\/a> that killed at least four dogs and was possibly connected to drainage problems at a popular Williamsburg dog run. Restler has a whole citywide dog run platform<\/a> that includes a City Council bill to require the parks department to take more responsibility for the upkeep of dog runs and another bill requiring the department to identify five areas in every community district that could potentially host a dog run.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a neighborhood like this one, you have people who have both the means to invest a little bit more in the dog run and the time to care for the dog run,\u201d Restler said on a recent morning at Hillside Dog Park in Brooklyn Heights. The vast, shady dog run abuts the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. \u201cBut in lots of parts of the city, you don\u2019t have the same concentration of people who have excess resources and capacity to maintain dog runs in their neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n Walking around the newly redone Washington Park Dog Run in Park Slope, where renovations cost about $650,000<\/a>, Hanif pointed out some of the necessary elements. \u201cYou need doggy turf specifically meant for dogs. We allowed some areas to be fenced in so that smaller dogs can play, and then we have that water fountain,\u201d she said, gesturing to a central spigot.<\/p>\n \u201cDog owners feel a great deal of conviction that their dogs need a place to run around, and many of the other park users feel a healthy amount of outrage that their grass is getting torn up and there\u2019s dog poop and even safety concerns,\u201d Restler said. In other words, in a city overrun with very spoiled dogs, the fenced-off dog runs are peacekeeping tools.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/inline-2--GettyImages-615223680-resized.jpg\")
\nAn image of a dog pound on 25th Street near the East River, 1900. Credit: CORBIS\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/inline-3-resized.jpg\")
\nCity Council Member Lincoln Restler visits one of New York City\u2019s 91 dog runs. The city\u2019s first dog run was established in 1990. Credit: Holly Pretsky<\/p>\n
![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/inline-1-resized.jpg\")