Emotional Support Animals in action. Beagles get ready to board a plane.

Over Christmas I flew roundtrip from New York to Chicago in a way that goes against everything airlines stand for today: I paid no extra fees and had no unnecessary paperwork despite the fact that my daughter and I flew with two beagles at our feet as Emotional Support Animals. The planes didn’t crash. The beagles didn’t unpredictably go wild. They didn’t even steal any cookies.

The credit for these new flying feats goes technically with the Air Carrier Access Act that originally written to stop airlines from mistreating people in wheelchairs, sometimes by dragging them through the plane. But I think the real credit for the recent surge in people flying with emotional support animals goes back to another law change: airlines have to tell the public how many animals die or get hurt or lost when they travel essentially as freight on airlines. Both laws were revised to apply more broadly.

Even with everyone paying extra attention, 307 animals died, 169 were injured and 53 lost on airlines in the 10 years ending in November 2015. The result is airlines don’t want to take the risk of freezing another dog; some have stopped flying animals that way altogether.

Today there are three ways to fly with your dog: you pay a lot of money for the dog to go in cargo (same pressurized air as the cabin, but this is where horrible deaths happen or dogs get out), you pay a lot of money for a dog that fits under the seat (generally 20 pounds) or you get a letter from a doctor or other professional saying you need emotional support animals. You have to have some condition that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says would benefit from an emotional support animal.

I qualify, but for years I looked askance at people going through airports with their animals. Surely they were taking advantage of the rules. There’s a danger that if we loosen the rules for helping people with disabilities, the people who really need help won’t get the assistance and respect they deserve.  The New York Times has also worried that people who use wheelchairs at airports to get around the growing security lines are milking the disability system, too.

Would people think my beagles were seeing eye dogs? Nope. That turned out not to be a real issue. The people I encountered absolutely understood the difference. Service dogs are trained with the equivalent of a dog PhD. before they meet the person whose lives they immeasurably improve. Service dogs rightly get to go anywhere. My dogs got their certification through my diagnosis, not their skill. Huck and Moxie can go on the plane and a few extremely limited travel accommodations, but that’s it. I didn’t go in for any of the unofficial Emotional Support Animal badges and registry that you can buy easily online. I did have them wear sturdy Ruff-Wear harnesses that I already had.

The only people I was worried about in a practical sense were people with allergies. The most severe allergies are to cats, not dogs. Still, dogs on a plane wouldn’t be fun for someone with severe dog allergies. (Contrary to what I and most passengers believe, we do get fresh air in flight, but tend to share it with those in the few rows around us.) So I gave them a bath the day before–the same thing therapy dogs do before going to a hospital to reduce their dander.

Obviously I don’t care about the airlines: we have all gotten used to the adversarial way this game is now played. The airlines try to lure us in with a low fare, then charge every fee they can imagine and get away with. We, the customers, try to dodge the fees like they were bullets.  Since my dogs are too big to fly in the cabin for a fee anyway, I’m going to do anything legal I can to get them there.

As a practical matter this is how it works: I already had the diagnosis. I took it to a doctor who specializes in these letters. She asked me a boatload of personal questions, then signed off. I called the airline ahead of time–they gave me some pushback about two dogs, but were fine. I  showed up with the letter. I did pay extra for us seats with extra leg room. I made sure the dogs peed outside beforehand in the right area. And I flew Delta from the Marine Air Terminal, which is an adorable toy airport.

Not every dog would be right for air travel, but Moxie and Huck are nearly perfect. They are jolly, calm and always have time to say hello to someone. They are used to being model beagle ambassadors because everyone loves to say hi to a beagle. Nearly, but not quite, perfect. Moxie “Epoxy” sticks with her family. Huckleberry will run if he catches a scent of food.

This lead to the one incident in our travel. For some odd reason, the dogs have to go through the metal detector with neither collars nor person. Huck had no problem. Moxie, however, didn’t want to leave me. I eventually got her through by pretending to throw a treat (The real ones were, unhelpfully, in my purse on the conveyor belt.) But just as Moxie went through, Huck got bored and took off through the LaGuadia Marine Air Terminal. I ran after Huck in my socks and my daughter and Moxie ran after me. Huck didn’t get too far–just to the free magazine rack. The TSA was remarkably good-humored about the whole thing.

On the plane, the dogs settled in at our feet, mostly under the seat in front of us. They slept–except for the usual airplane bumps. The Delta staff at the were as nice as could be. The dogs didn’t bother anyone, even when the flight attendants brought around those delicious speculoos cookies. We got off to a surly, delayed crowd at O’Hare, which immediately made way for the beagles and smiled at them. The only disruption they caused was that so many people wanted to say hi to them.

O’Hare is now starting to accommodate the growing number of emotional support travelers: last fall they opened a pet relief area in Terminal 3 (sadly, not our terminal.) Getting your dog certified as an emotional support animal seems to be the way of the future. Eventually someone will come up with a way to let airlines just charge us for a regular seat for our dogs. But for now this is the uneasy truce between dog people and the airlines.

Plymouth Long Beach

The good people of Plymouth, MA, are too pre-occupied promoting their Pilgrim amusements and adorable downtown to notice they’ve got something unique in the northeast: beaches where people can bring their dogs–even during the days of summer.

What’s so special about that? Isn’t that the normal time of day and year to go to the beach? Yes, but almost no town on the East Coast is so generous and sensible. Most other beaches ban them altogether, for the summer or, if you’re lucky, only for daylight hours. The rules just seem to keep creeping: the island of Chincoteague and the National Wildlife Refuge there doesn’t even allow dogs in your car. Towns like Mamaroneck, NY, has a waterfront park where dogs are banned year-round after 6 a.m. (Which is why we won’t be buying a house there.)

In all of these places I imagine some horrible town council dominated by one or two people–cat people, probably– who are both dog-hating and power-loving. The smaller the jurisdiction, the more likely they are to have some hateful and capricious dog ban–and lots of other rules. The broader the government body, the less likely they are to ban dogs. So, tiny, useless town parks (like in Irvington, NY) ban dogs, but many federal beaches on Cape Cod or Fire Island are immune to this kind of political grandstanding.

Are they worried about dog waste? Then that’s a separate law.  And as a mom to a human child, I found a recent sign in Maine’s Range Pond State Park chastising people that even dog poop buried in the woods was a threat to our children a bit of a stretch. Or are they concerned dogs will run into people? Then why not ban sports? Oh, wait, some have even done that, too.

What these towns don’t seem to consider is that families go to great lengths to travel with dogs, so a tiny accommodation would be a huge attraction. My family was driving back from Maine to New York and looked online for a dog-friendly beach town. New England Dog Travel pointed us to Plymouth.

We found (at least) two dog friendly beaches. Long Beach allows dogs in summer just at one end and on a leash. There’s free parking, trash cans, and a bar nearby.

Beagle down! Moxie loves the beach so much she runs in big circles, rolls in sand and tries to eat shells.

The real gem, though, was Nelson Memorial Park, maybe the best beach for dogs, kids, and birders in New England. The woman at the visitor’s center sent me there after I said we came to town for the dog-friendly beaches. “Oh, you must have been disappointed then to find out they have to be on leash,” she said modestly. No! That’s totally fine.

We have two former research laboratory beagles; you’ve seen videos of beagles like them shocked to be on grass or sunlight for the first time. That’s what they were like when we got them. Moxie, who spent two years in a lab, wouldn’t walk down the street without cowering. Then we took her to a beach, months later, and she went bananas. She ran in huge circles. She ate sand. She chewed shells. She rolled on the sand in excitement. So, I feel morally obligated to take her to a beach whenever I can. She doesn’t go in the water or bark. Because of the leash law, she couldn’t run in huge circles. But she still was just so happy it was worth spending a night in Plymouth.

Nelson Memorial Park has everything you could want, including an unbelievably close Osprey nest.

Here’s how amazing Nelson Memorial Park is: You can buy food at a stand, wear your kids out on the playground, cool them down in the splash pad, and then amble along the long beach and its gentle, shallow water. The beach featured all kinds of shells, and it’s the only place I saw people playing with their kids in the water, even in the reeds. There’s also some kind of spring that makes a warm water tidal pool, where toddlers plopped. Unbelievably, within 20 feet of the beach is an osprey nest on a pole, close enough that we could see two chicks playing tug of war with a fish.

Plymouth seems like it might be the only town in America that just didn’t order their beach rules sign off a template. In fact, I never found a beach rules sign. Even their wording of the announcement of limited dog rules makes it seem like the Fish and Wildlife Service made them do it to protect plovers, not just people who hate dogs.

For a while we were the only people with a dog. I started to worry I’d gotten the rules wrong. When another woman with a dog came along I sheepishly said how much I loved the dog-friendly beaches, hoping to get some confirmation. She said she was from Plymouth and didn’t think it was anything special. I explained how rare it was all the places we’d seen. “That’s so weird,” she said. “Because walking on the beach with your dog is such a New England thing to do.” I know, right?

Dogs have been enjoying drinks at NYC bars forever–until cat people spoil the fun

The Gate, one of the most famously dog-friendly bars in New York City, posted a sign Sunday saying that it’s been busted by the Health Department and will no longer allow dogs. Thousands of dogs and dog lovers have been enjoying the outdoor patio of Park Slope’s divey bar for decades with nobody catching rabies or even cooties, but as the sign points out, the outdated law is forcing them to stop the practice.

This sad outcome is only possible because New York City has an outdated health code that reflects medieval superstition rather than infectious disease science. Chicago passed a dog-friendly code in 2012 and has since seen no calamity. Restaurants don’t have to allow dogs, but they can if they want to. The whole state of California officially decided in August to allow dogs in outdoor seating. European bars and restaurants have welcomed dogs for centuries and they seem to be doing fine.

I happened upon now New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio back when he was a long-shot candidate at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer’s Market in June, 2013, and I asked him about New York allowing dogs at outdoor cafes like Chicago. He said New York is “more dense” so he didn’t know if it would be feasible. Really, Park Slope is more dense than the Loop? Than L.A. or San Francisco? Frankly, I like that the mayor supports getting rid of horse-drawn carriages in Central Park, but this law (along with maybe banning the sale of puppies and stronger spay-neuter rules) would do a lot more to improve the lives of New Yorkers and their animal friends.

The Gate points out that it has been “not endangering human health” since 1997. Often it seems like you have to have a dog to sit out on the patio. It’s the whole point of going there. For me and many others, the dog policy is the main attraction. People sit outside on the patio, bring their dog, and the staff, who have always been really nice, even let you bring in food from area restaurants since The Gate doesn’t serve food.

Dogs sadly no longer allowed at The Gate in Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

New York dog lovers and their favorite bars have been doing a dance around the law for decades. The Scratcher in the East Village was the favorite bar of dog people for years–until one day someone who didn’t like dogs came in and didn’t like it. Then, instead of going to any other bar in the city that didn’t allow dogs, they called the health department. Other places make you tie the dog outside the fencing–which creates more problems for dogs, their people, and anybody walking by than its worth.

There are so many things New York City could do to make restaurants stop spreading illnesses–more hand sanitizer, fewer bathroom doorknobs, maybe some bleach solution on condiment containers and menus. But if I want to have a beer–or even a salad–with a dog at my feet, I should be able to do it in what is America’s most sophisticated city.

Huck at first didn’t know what treats were and wouldn’t take them. So I started offering other things, including apples. We got them in the fall (our third beagleversary is coming up) from Associated Humane in New Jersey. Huck decided to slowly decided to take bites of everything–including gum on the street, jack-o-lanterns and ornamental kale. Those remain his sentimental favorites–except for the gum.

We roll the pumpkin down a hill in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Huck and his sister Moxie chase after it. If it’s a good roll, he’ll bark at the pumpkin. Then he gets to eat it. It takes many rolls, but eventually he breaks in. Other dogs sometimes join in. Huck is visibly proud of his pumpkin and his skill. The only time he growls is if some other dog tries to steal his pumpkin. Moxie will occasionally succeed–more to piss off her brother than because she really wants it.

Moxie’s real sport is peanut butter tree. We smear a tree with peanut butter and the dogs jump up to lick it. Moxie is unquestionably the world champion of this sport. There’s a particularly leany tree by Prospect Park Lake that she climbs–well above our heads and far beyond the peanut butter. She is just showing off.

We’re showcasing both sports–along with a howling contest–at a beagle meetup in Prospect Park this Saturday morning, 8-10, behind the picnic house, to coincide with the FIDO coffee bark. As always, any kind of hound mix (or any dog who wants to play the games) is welcome. We’re not purebred jerks; that’s not the beagle way.

More info on the beagle meetups in NYC. 

How to play peanut butter tree

Dog howls to music: does he like it or hate it?

There are certain songs heard over and over on TV that every American human knows. And, it turns out, so do many dogs. There’s now a meme of internet memes: many TV songs have the magical property to make dogs sing.

People started documenting the mysterious property of the irritating Empire Carpet jingle to make dogs sing on YouTube in 2006. If you’ve ever lived in Chicago and wasted time on lousy TV stations, you know and loathe the phone number of Empire Carpet: 588-2300 Empire!  The Fogelnest Files recently revisited the phenomena, with a playlist of dogs being driven crazy by song of the now-national chain. But this internet meme  is just the beginning.

Now dogs are baying to 877-Cash, the song of J.G. Wentworth, which buys settlements and annuities. This seems like a natural progression for sing-a-long dogs. Wentworth has the same low budget style and the identical concept of repeating their phone number ad naseum.

Watch playlist of dogs singing to J.G. Wentworth

But now I see another trend that brings up all kinds of questions about the dogs’ motivation. Are dogs complaining about hearing the same commercial again? Or do they just like to sing along when they know the tune? Our dogs have been our unwitting laboratory research subjects when they hang out with us in front of the TV.

The new YouTube meme: Dogs singing to Law & Order Theme. This song isn’t annoying. It doesn’t have words or a pushy phone number. But, wow is it everywhere. And here’s another: Dogs sing to the General Hospital theme. Which, again, isn’t annoying, but is presumably something these dogs hear every day.

We’re never sure what makes dogs sing. Some bay at harmonicas, fire engines or horns. When we have our beagle meetups only about 20% of the dogs that are infamous for their howling ever sing. I wish I could figure out how to make them sing. So now I think they are just singing along to something they hear all the time and probably kind of like. Look at how much Logan the Poodle seems to have fun singing to Law and Order.

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No shelter dog was acceptable.

Ok, so the first time around I was willing to give the Obamas a little slack. They got their first dog and got it from a breeder. But now it’s been a few years, they’ve gotten over their historic win, they’ve gotten to know Bo, the Portuguese Water Dog, as a friend, and they’ve been exposed to a world of animal issues and animal politics.

By now the Obamas should be a little aware of the 2.7 million adoptable shelter dogs and cats euthanized each year.  They’re aware that they have let down anyone who cares about wildlife, wolves, getting a fair price for ranchland, etc. They are aware enough of how detrimental it is to animal welfare to support businesses that breed dogs instead of non-profits who adopt them out to make a donation to the local shelter.

But what do they do? Get another purebred dog.

Oh, I’m sure there will be some complicated story about how this is another “second chance dog.” Sunny was born in 2012 in Michigan, where there are a few Portuguese Water Dog breeders. If this were really a rescue the White House would have mentioned it and they wouldn’t have had to make a pity donation to the Washington Humane Society.

Let’s remember the fishy story about how Bo came into their life. Sen. Ted Kennedy loved Portuguese Water Dogs and somehow just as the Obamas moved to the White House a family decided that their puppy from Kennedy’s breeder wasn’t working out. Oh, I’m sure that Kennedy didn’t have anything to do with that. Back in 2009, dog people were disappointed they fell for all the American Kennel Club branding. But, really if a gravely ill Sen. Kennedy arranged to get me a dog, I’d pretty much take that dog, too. At the time I talked to some big time dog trainers, like Bash Dibra, who had volunteered his services to take any hypoallergenic shelter dog they wanted and train it to be a presidential pet.

But, seriously, a second one of the same obscure breed? It seems like these days it’s not enough for people to have stupid AKC papers on their golden retriever. No, they’ve got to get themselves some breed of dog that was almost wiped out, was down to a handful and then is having a current douchebag revival. And what ever happened to that shelter dog Joe Biden so desperately wanted to adopt after he bought a dog from a puppy mill?

As if a dog that meets the American Kennel Club’s random physical requirements is better than other dogs.  This is a terrible example to set for their girls and the country: just get whatever you want and don’t worry about how you contribute to a problem. If you feel bad, give a donation and forget it.

Here’s the case: Professional dog handler Robert Chaffin went to the biggest dog event in the country with Cruz, a happy-looking, fluffy, white, 3-year-old Samoyed. Didn’t win. Days later in Colorado, the dog died vomiting blood. Horrific. Tragic.

Here’s what you or I would do if we even vaguely suspected somebody poisoned our family pet: order tests and raise hell till we caught the person who did this horrible thing.

If I had the vaguest suspicion my dog had been poisoned by anyone I’d be demanding a necropsy and the most thorough anaylsis of the poison money could buy. In fact  I did get a necrospy on my 15-year-old dog, Jolly, when he died a few years ago, just to see exactly what went wrong. The death was not suspicious and he wasn’t part of my business. I didn’t have a website touting Jolly’s lineage like they have for Cruz. New Yorkers routinely order up necropsies on dead hawks they find in parks to figure out if poison was involved and which one.  If I thought he had died at the hands of a villain at major dog event–and therefore thousands of other dogs would be vulnerable–I would have had an obligation to get to the bottom of the case.

But Cruz, more formally known as BIS Am. Grand ch. Polar Mist Cruz’nT’party at Zamosky, is co-owned by Lynette Blue and an Indonesian breeder, Zamosky, and is hardly a family pet. So here’s what the handler and owner do: refuse to do a necropsy (animal autopsy). Then go to the New York Times and accuse the PeTA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, of somehow slipping their dog rat poison at the premier dog show in the country. They claim to have called the New York City Police but not gotten a response.

“[Rat poisoning] is in the realm of possibility,” Lynette Blue told The Associated Press on Thursday. “The timeline adds up. There’s no other scenario we can come up with other than poison,” she said. (The Times came up with hemophilia, which is linked to the breed, but it seems unlikely to have gone undetected so long.)

“Unfortunately, dog shows have been plagued by some of these people for years,” Chaffin said told the New York Times, which amazingly ran this unsubstantiated attack on PeTA. “I’ve heard horror stories about other people’s dogs having their setups tampered with, being poisoned, but I never thought it would come to me.”

Chaffin’s weird paranoia about animal rights groups is pretty much the only thing their claim is based on. Lots of people hate dog shows and the creepy dog breeding industry. But they do it because they love dogs–instead of loving arbitrary breed standards. If there are any documented cases of dogs being poisoned at shows it would be a horrible crime and certainly newsworthy. So the Times should have no trouble digging them up, right?

Chaffin says Cruz was hardly alone for minutes. I’ve been to Westminster and many dogs are left in crates for hours with no person  in site. Other dog people hover nearby. I don’t know which type he is. I only know that you don’t ever leave a dog alone in New York City. I have had dogs here for about 16 years and I don’t do it for a minute. Especially not if I sincerely believed someone was out to get them.

He claims somebody gave him the evil eye for having Cruz’s vocal cords cut. I can easily imagine someone rolling their eyes at this practice, but this is hardly the biggest target of animal rights activists. Even if some arch villain were set to poison a show dog, wouldn’t they go for more offensive breeds like boxers and ridgebacks, that regularly kill off puppies for not meeting breed standards? Or breeders that keep producing dogs despite known genetic defects?

The most obvious problem with the theory: why would an animal lover quietly poison an inconspicuous competitor at a big dog show with a poison that takes days to work? Wouldn’t you use anything with the sugar substitute xylitol, which kills within hours?

They told the Times that they didn’t hear back from the NYPD. If I didn’t get a good enough response from the NYPD, I would have pulled in the Westminster Kennel Club, which surely would have an interest in either catching someone who did something so awful to one of its dogs or putting all the other attendees at ease. So far I don’t see much reaction from the Westminster Kennel Club aside from saying that they haven’t had dogs poisoned. The Kennel Club has to step up, one way or the other, either by investigating the possible crime or saying the story is ludicrous.

Where to SEE DOG EVENTS like basset hound waddles, Halloween parades, dock dogs

I was so delighted to find a pond where the rules were mainly about keeping dogs on leashes (and, fussily, how you have to pay if you want to take professional pictures there). I credited some kind of Southern conservatism that bucked unnecessary rules and interference with family fun. We had a fine time feeding the mallard, Peking and muskovy ducks. As usual there were Canada geese, but not an overwhelming number. The ground wasn’t covered in droppings or anything.

The place is delightful. It’s just a small pond in a residential part of Buckhead. The concierge at our hotel didn’t know of any toddler playgrounds in the area, but this space turned out to be pretty and fun.

But then when I went to look up the place, it turns out the Peach Tree Heights Neighbors just got together and decided they had too much goose poop and so would start spending a lot of money to evict the geese and will start sending out patrols to stop moms from feeding the ducks with their kids. Frown. The patrols will tell people that feeding the geese is costing the neighbors thousands of dollars. Sigh.

They plan on telling parents who happen to amble by with their kids the USDA has confirmed that the pond has “too many” geese. I’m sure that’s a great way to intimidate moms into doing what you want, but I’m not sure it’s really helping them understand the situation. That’s like arguing you should have a nose job because the cosmetic surgeon said it would look great. The USDA’s Wildlife Services unit is an infamous juggernaut of animal-killing that recommends its own killing and relocation services to anybody in the country with an animal problem. They kill about 5 million wild animals a year.

They’ll also throw out there the usual canard: that this is all for the health of the birds. This issue is 100% about people thinking goose poop is yucky. If the concern were about bread being bad for the goose’s diet, you could just suggest better foods (dog food, actual duck feed, grain or some fruits or veggies).

To its credit, the Peachtree Heights East group isn’t starting off with a mass gassing. They’ll do a little egg addling and plan to “relocate” many of their birds, despite the overwhelming evidence that this is a short-term solution at best and that they are unlikely to find anybody willing to take them.

The association cites rising costs of dredging (even though they only seem to have done it once in 2001) and $50,000 of sod in 2011. Seems to me it’s hard to pin 100% of the sod cost on Canada geese, which they claim are pulling up too many grass roots.  (Well, maybe people aren’t feeding the enough.)

Much cheaper options:

The pond already has tons of signs  and rules about off-leash dogs and is set to get more about how duck-feeding is an unnatural scourge. Meanwhile, the association is considering spending $1,500 to $4,000 to hire dogs to chase the geese away. I don’t want to sound too radical here, but wouldn’t the park be more enjoyable for everyone if they just let dogs go off leash?

If the Canada goose is the only species you want to get rid of (and if you’ve got a place called “Duck Pond,” I’d hope that was the case), just ask people not to feed that particular species. You don’t have to be an ornithologist to tell the difference between a mallard and a Canada goose. Just ask people not to feed the Canadian geese. Not that complicated.

Where to Go See Wild Animals in the US

Where to See Weird Birds

Milligan is a beagle triathelete: he jumped right on this stump to get peanut butter, he sings and he charms his way into many treats.

1. Assemble your pack of beagles. If you don’t  have a pack, a brace will do in a pinch. Or go to Meetup.com and call a pack together.

2. Find a complicated and cragily tree trunk. You want the kind of roots that like to reach up and trip passerby. A downed tree is a plus.

3. Smear peanut butter. Other nut butters, liverwurst or cream cheese is also acceptable. A generous host might also insert liver or other high value treats in holes and cracks.

4. Let the beagles have at it. They will climb, jump and scamper higher than you’ve seen.

Last weekend we had a meetup of about 20 beagles in Prospect Park at the same time as FIDO’s holiday party. Moxie and Huck, familiar with the game, had a kind of home field advantage at first. But the other hounds caught on quick. Milligan,  a charming one-eyed senior with an incredible voice, jumped right on the giant oak trunk. Other beagles climbed the roots, dug into the pit or excavated a crack. For days afterward the beagle were checking the spot for more peanut butter to appear.

Where to SEE DOG EVENTS like basset hound waddles, Halloween parades, dock dogs

Where to SEE WOLVES (plus coyote, coywolf and any wild canid)

As Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast, dog people are basically the only ones out on city streets, trying to get their reluctant dogs to pee. The big worry is keeping pets safe and with their people–after so many lost of both lost in Katrina. Birders, meanwhile, are hoping the terrible storm throws some birds hundreds of miles from where they want to be so that they can add another entry to their pedantic life lists.

Dog people are faring  better in this hurricane than just a few years ago.  Now shelters and evacuation systems now have to deal with pets. This time dogs got to ride the NYC subways! But only for about six hours–between the city’s evacuation announcement and when the trains stopped running. They can still ride in cabs, FIDO reminded NYC dog owners.

Mayor Bloomberg just announced that the shelters already have 70 pets. “Don’t leave your pet at home because you don’t know when you’ll be back,” he  said. Aww, he’s gotten soft since hating the idea in 2006, when he said “We have to evacuate human beings and that is where our priorities need to be.” Back then he didn’t quite get that you have to let the people bring their dogs to get them to leave. But now he’s embracing the plan when New Yorkers need it, so good on him.

Birders, meanwhile, are looking forward to rare species from the tropics getting blown hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they want to be. eBird suggests–after an exhausting prologue warning against going to the beach in the hurricane to look for petrels–that petrels, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, terns, laughing gulls and Phalaropes are the birds you might  see, possibly as far away as the midwest.

This is why dog people are considered trustworthy and approachable and birders are dismissed as pedantic.