[MY FAVORITE PARK SLOPE...] Vet: Dr. Morehead at Animal Kind

IMAGE VIA PARK SLOPE LENS

Yo, we like lots of shit in Park Slope, and this is where we're gonna talk about it all. Got a fave Park Slope somethin somethin? Email us and let us know, who, what, where, or why you love someone or something in Park Slope as hard as you do.

If you read this blog regularly, you already know several things:

1. I am totally fucking obsessed with my dog Oliver
2. I am way the hell more annoying about my dog than you are about your bebe
3. I take better care of my dog than I do myself.

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Park Slope Basset Hound Flashmob!

ALL IMAGES VIA @KERRYGEISE UNLESS INDICATED

If me talking about Oliver-n-dogs and Basset Hounds makes you wanna barf, now would be a good time to clickity clack on over to another post. Cause this Sunday was the first official meetup of the North Slope Basset Hound Association (NBA), and it was AMAZEBALLS x ten billion.

Organized by fellow Park Sloper and NYT City Room Bureau Chief Andy Newman (and his world famous Basset Hound Barnaby, who almost completed a 26.2 mile marathon around his own block in Park Slope; video here), six Bassets and their people met up in Prospect Park for some major howling, barking, drooling and general mayhem: Meet Iggy, Jett, Oliver, Barnaby, Higgins and Baxter!

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Profiles In Courage: Linda The Dog Walker

I love Linda, the dog walker.

As I’ve previously noted, she’s in my pantheon of dwindling Park Slope characters (even though it turns out she lives in Bay Ridge). And no, it's not because she's a whack job--she has a big, singular personality. I consider her a character in only the nicest way. Although nothing would make me happier than to see her walking arm in arm with long lost Norma. 

I especially love the way Linda can be heard across the meadow bellowing. Specifically, I thrill at how she yells to Dude, one of her charges...and a girl, if you can believe that. Seems oddly fitting. 

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WHO GIVES A SHIT: Does Your Dog/Cat Sleep In Your Bed?

An article came out in the NYT last week which talked about the ever growing practice of allowing pets to sleep in one's own bed: Warm Nights, Cold Noses. And yep: there are all sorts of diseases-n-shit you could get from letting that go down. But also the main take away from the article was: most people don't give a rat's ass.

People REALLY like to sleep with their pets.

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Who Gives A Shit: 'Is Your Dog Friendly?'

So, dog owners do this thing when they meet each other on the street: in order to gauge whether one dog will bite the other dog's fucking head off, we'll call out "is your dog friendly?"

Seems kind of innocuous, no?

But this being Park Slope-n-all, there is no such thing.

I'm lucky enough to have a super duper friendly dog. In fact, Oliver is utterly fucking dumbfounded if your dog is walking by and doesn't want to say hello to him. It's like his brain can't compute the information, and he just stares, watches the dog pass, and takes one last long look back as if to say: WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU TO DESERVE THIS SORT OF TREATMENT!?"

So, ok: granted if your dog *is* friendly, there's not much more to say than "yes!" or "very" when another dog owner inquires as to their level of approachability. However, I've begun to notice something lately from the "not friendly" dog owner camp and it usually makes me wanna vom.

Rather than just saying "NO...he's not friendly" and leave it at that, everyone needs to come up with some sort of War and Peace explanation as to why their dog may or may not get all cujo: "well, he's VERY friendly, but only with female dogs...is your dog a male or a female?" or "he's almost always super friendly, but sometimes on long walks or if he's really tired he might be a bit unpredictable" (said as the woman felt confident enough to approach me and my dog with her "unpredictable" pooch." Or this one was my fave from yesterday: "he's friendly, but he doesn't get along with old dogs." UHM, what!? Your dog is an ageist? Or a sexist? Or a racist!?

HONESTLY, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT! I JUST WANT A SIMPLE "YES" OR "NO."

I will not judge you or think you less of a person because your dog is not friendly. I will not assume you don't care about society, or animal rights, or locally produced food. I will not assume that you are a bad fur mommy or fur daddy. I will not assume that you (or your dog) are in therapy.  I just wanna know, quickly and without bullshit, whether or not I should be concerned about your dog biting my dog's face. That's IT.

Sheesh.