I received my first leash law ticket. Actually first two leash law tickets. In good morality I have no right to be bitter about it, as I’ve broken the leash regulations 1,176 times (two times a day) since I moved to the city. It was eventually going to happen- I had survived a year a half ticket-free and honestly had begun to pride myself on that fact. Now I live in fear of the enjoyment-hating woman whom I have now encountered three times (two of which I cried my way out of), and hasn’t remembered me or the abnormally attractive Blakely any of the times. 

My true punishment came though on Valentine’s Day.  I was watching my roommate’s dog for the weekend, and tugged his resisting little behind to the park on this day as well.  Crispin is, to say, an indoor dog. He doesn’t enjoy mud, or sticks, or fresh air. His whole being of ten pounds would rather pee on a pole and shit on a sidewalk crack than make the one block ‘trek’ to greener pastures.  I made him go anyway. 

Karma really kicked in when I saw that enjoyment-hating woman walking towards me. Shit. No getting out of this one.  A Saturday morning at 11am and I’m throwing a ball to two loose dogs on a, what I could come to find out, a no-dog grass area. I’ll try anyway…

“Is there anyway you could condense this into only one ticket?…”

Turns out, there are enjoyment-hating folk out of uniform as well.  Some prick with a cell phone called in the two dogs off leash. Blakely and Crispin were in no way affecting anyone’s Saturday stroll, let alone even looking at anything or anyone other than the round neon bouncing globe.  Get a life, stranger who hates fun. Either way, a two dog call needs a two dog ticket, so I left Carl Schurz that day a little less confident, and a little more broke. $200 more broke. 

The surefire way to not get a ticket, if you are less of a risk taker, is the pebble-floored ‘Large Dog Run’ of Carl Schurz Park.  I have often compared 6pm there to the one hour of non-cell time prison inmates get in the recreation yard. Delinquent untrained city dogs parading around humping and barking and urinating on one another.  Dogs that have no emotional connection with their owners, and spend all hours of the day with the nanny.  Hmm, one could easily mistake city dogs with city children.  Pebbles aside, Blakely is more uncomfortable here than when she gets her butt juice expunged at Dr. VanHorn’s.

Occasionally when I have Blakely off the leash, after work and when it’s dark, I am confronted by miserable people who own dogs that hate them because they aren’t allowed the joy of chasing a freshly fallen stick until they cough up bark. These people, who I aggressively fight back to because I believe my dog should be able to be a dog and gain muscle strength, most commonly rely on the ‘you’re breaking the law’.  Hey, I also jaywalk and carry grams of pot in my purse and on the subway.  A rebel, if you will.

Please let me, and my dog, live our lives and stop wasting 30 minutes of your Tuesday night trying to convince the security guard at Gracie Mansion to do something about me.  

I’m a dog lover.  But i guess not everyone who owns a dog is.  I truly feel for the dogs that don’t experience life as a dog because of the harsh restrictions of New York City. I’ve come up with a solution to the troubles of like-minded dog owners:

Dog Tax.

New Yorkers residing on the UES and who frequently use Carl Schurz pay a monthly (say, $50) fee which buys them a dog card allowing their dog (who also has a CS tag) to be off-leash in the park.  The apparent justification of CS being a leash park at all times is that the contributors to the park’s maintenance don’t want dogs off the leash.  Fine.  I want to become a contributor and have a say in its rules.  I’m no Michael Bloomberg (who is the first mayor to refuse residence in Gracie Mansion in it’s existence), but my dollars are still dollars. 

Who’s with me?