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.

Fire Island Deer in Contraceptive Program

The National Parks Service seems to be marching closer towards killing off an enormous portion of Fire Island white-tailed deer. Deer lovers on the barrier island off New York have feared since 2012 when the federal agency announced it was coming up with a plan to “manage” the deer population that there was only one way this was going to go.

The Parks Service announced on December 31–talk about a late night news dump–that despite years of deliberation and 400 pages of public comment, they are planning to kill off one-third to two-thirds of the deer population. And then come back and do it again. And specifically target deer that approach humans, which seems especially cruel. It’s also a way to interfere with the natural evolution of a species in an world that is dominated by one species, humans.

It didn’t need to happen at all. Much of the comments are angry at the idea the Parks Service is going to kill wildlife in the name of protecting the grounds of an historical estate and to try to recreate an exact moment in the natural history of the island–after humans had killed off the large predators, but before deer and other prey species thrived in their absence. In the parks service view, a natural environment and balance that require constant human intervention and shooting is preferable to whatever happens naturally.

There’s a last ditch change.org petition to try to stop killing the deer, though that seems hopeless. The Parks Service decided a long time ago they wanted to shoot the deer on Fire Island and that’s what they’re going to start doing.

Bat alert and ready to go after warming up.

Bats in New York City are falling wearily onto sidewalks in our recent sudden cold spell. This morning I found one–at first mistaking the gray fur for a dead mouse. I got sticks to move it out of the pathway chopsticks-style. And then the poor thing started hissing at me. A completely empty threat as it was still too weak to get up. I picked the bat up in a plastic bag–as a dog owner, I always have plenty–and brought it to warm up in the sun. Still nothing.

I carried the bat home in one hand and pushed the stroller and held the beagle leash in the other. I was afraid to put the bat bag in my pocket because I could either suffocate the bat or end up having to reach into a pocket with a bat. In New York bats are a rabies vector species–meaning they potentially carry the disease. I would need a higher grade wildlife rehabilitator license to take care of one, but that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to foist it off on someone qualified or get instructions on a quick release. I reached out to some wildlife rehabilitators.

Seemingly dead bat. Don’t pick one up with your bare hands.

Meanwhile, I warmed up the bat under an incandescent bulb. I went looking for bugs, lacking mealworms, the preferred food of captive bats. My daughter Ginger, 4, eagerly helped me hunt for spider webs and then, failing that, collect acorns to soak to find weevils. No luck. My poor cleaning habits paid off: inside a light fixture I found dead bugs. I added them to warm honey water and served them up on a straw. The bat grabbed and licked the straw. And then she or he started to feel better, began climbing around.

Right now I’m reading the educational and entertaining book The Secret Life of Bats by Merlin Tuttle, the bat man of Austin. He tells of learning to become a professional-level photographer to get pictures out of bats that weren’t terrifying. As the tiny bat hissed and chomped its tiny teeth, I thought of his difficulties. I would need a lot more time to get to see this bat’s sweeter side, but it’s best to move the wildlife back to the wild quickly.

Marty Bast, effectively the game keeper of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, offered to release her properly once she warmed up. He said this was the third bat found in this sleepy, cold torpor on the ground in the last two weeks. People often think they’re dead and go to pick them up with bare hands, then get bit. That leads to these bats getting euthanized and the person getting preventative rabies vaccines. Not only does the cold slow them down, it reduces the number of insects out there for them to eat.

New York has nine bat species. I’m not sure if this one was a little brown bat (which hibernates in caves) or a silver-haired bat (Lasyionicterius noctivagans) which migrates.

If the bat hits a tree and falls, they can’t take off again from the ground. So, you release them on a tree, not on the ground. Bast found a sunny tree near where I’d found the bat a couple hours earlier. He removed her from my cage with special bite-proof gloves. She quickly but awkwardly climbed up the tree to safety. When he gets calls for a live bat not moving on the ground, he warms them up and lets them go.

This praying mantis lady is eating a bee.

I was shocked to find a praying mantis sitting on a flower in a Brooklyn park this week. How rare! Aren’t they endangered? Well, I was shocked again to find out that they’re nothing close to endangered–the IUCN (the union of concerned scientists that decides which species are threatened) hasn’t even been concerned enough to evaluate whether the common North American mantis is in trouble.

But that didn’t stop me–or my friend Gabriella or my toddler daughter–from enjoying the extremely unusual show of a four or five inch bug trying to hide from other insects, then pouncing on them.  And not in some kind of graceful swoosh. How do bees not notice this monster sitting on a flower? It would be like me not noticing a lobster the size of a bus.

Everything the praying mantis did was clumsy. The way she walked, jumped, flew. But she still caught two bees in about an hour. And when she did, she tore off the bees’ legs and shoved them into her mouth with the extra legs or claws that stick out of her jaw. It was like legs eating legs.

Our friend David came by and showed us how you can get the mantis to walk on your hand and pet its wings. He finds their brown, styrofoam-like egg cases from time to time in the park. So they’re not endangered or rare, just really freaky and fun to watch.

Praying mantis pulls apart a bee.

For about four years I’ve been tracking the cardinals of Prospect Park, cultivating a friendship with generations of them along a path in the Ravine–and all the time hoping and scheming to get to see the Elusive Cardinal Nest. This year and last I’ve found cardinal nests that failed elsewhere in the park. But this year I got to see one of the notoriously well-hidden cardinal nests up close.

Luckily for me this cardinal pair–one of three along the path behind dog beach–built their nest in a thorny shrub easily seen from the path instead of the vast area of fenced off woods. This is the first year I didn’t see George–a cardinal we’ve known for years for his jutting white wing feathers and eagerness for sunflower seeds. I whistle. George comes and gets sunflower seeds. And eventually, George, George’s wife and several neighboring cardinals, whom I think are George’s sons. He would castigate them for invading his territory and they would submit to him. But this year, no bird with white wing feathers. I don’t know if they fell out or he died. But now there are several cardinals in the area who know the routine.

Whoever the cardinals are that built this nest, they are part of George’s clan. I whistle, they come for sunflowers. Or, if I’m busy talking, they come and demand them by chirping loudly and jumping around. I saw one go to the nest, which is still pretty hidden despite being just five feet off the path. I’d see mommy cardinal on the nest. The dad would eat sunflowers and sometimes the mom would take a break and get some.

I didn’t get to see the babies until this week when they were almost ready to fledge. There are at least three. The parents preferred to feed them freshly caught bugs while they ate the sunflowers themselves. One day the mom was missing for a long time and the dad kept calling for her. Finally she came back. I guess she needed a break. By then the babies were stretching their wings and getting ready. And then this Friday they were gone. Good luck, cardinals.

A mother cardinal feeds her babies a juicy green bug.

Meet my friend, the pushy cardinal of Prospect Park …

BUSTED! Cops ticket the least threatening person in the park they can find: a young mom pushing a stroller and attending a French bulldog meetup.

The City of New York executed a daring undercover raid on a menacing group of French bulldog owners meeting in Prospect Park’s Long Meadow on a recent Saturday morning. Their crime: having their miniature dogs off leash past the 9 a.m. curfew in a park obsessed with the enforcement of dog rules.The City of New York executed a daring undercover raid on a menacing group of French bulldog owners meeting in Prospect Park’s Long Meadow on a recent Saturday morning. Their crime: having their miniature dogs off leash past the 9 a.m. curfew in a park obsessed with the enforcement of dog rules.

Swooping in dressed as a civilian couple–with the female officer slyly wearing acid-washed pre-torn jeans, the cops nabbed their prey: two moms whose tiny, friendly dogs sat nearby off-leash. One woman, ticketed before 10 am, left crying with a $200 ticket and her miniature poodle mix. The other walked off pushing a stroller explaining how the officers (either NYPD or Parks Enforcement Police, I’m  not sure) told her that her dog was a danger to children.

In typical racial profiling you see white cops harassing young, black men for just somehow seem menacing. But in this new twist, two young black cops seemingly singled out the whitest (on in one case Asian-Americanist), girliest, mildest people in the park. But it fits with what women (and milder dads) have long complained about: cops and parks enforcement go for the low-hanging fruit, the easy targets who are not bothering anyone but are easy to catch.

Prospect Park management for some reason likes to use a show of force with dog people and no one else. Cops are there by 9:02 most days, flashing their lights and sirens. Enforcement is in inverse proportion to the number of other people enjoying the park. On cold winter weekday when not another living creature can be seen, I am sure to get scolded for having dropped the leash for my beagles, sitting in the snow five feet away.

The people most upset about dogs off-leash in the park, who claim, without much evidence that dogs are rampaging through the woods (where dogs are never supposed to be off-leash) and scaring away birds. If there are so many dogs frolicking in the forest, it should be no problem to ticket them. But that would take actual police work, sitting in the woods all day hoping a dog will scamper by. So it’s easy to run by the meadow and trap the people who are trying to follow the rules, but are sloppy about it. (Like these other moms, I struggle, usually unsuccessfully, to get myself, my kid and my dogs to the park with enough time to play before 9. And if my husband is along, it is hopeless.)  Sometimes dog people get tired of being harassed and just head from the meadow into the woods or Rose Garden, where manner of illegal activity is shielded from police by some kind of invisible forcefield.

There is no shortage of behavioral or physical problems that need attention in the park. Although it’s supposed to happen, I have yet to see any of the pelotons of bike racers get tickets for blowing a red light.  Just a few days before this incident I used the traffic signal button to cross the main drive with my stroller, kid and beagles. A bike racer ran a red light, yelled “You could have stopped for me!”, swerved menacingly behind me into the pedestrian path when I dared to use the button to turn the light red at a crosswalk. And right behind him was a car with Urban Park Rangers, who did absolutely nothing.

Brave Urban Park Rangers bust a toy poodle mix for violating the hours of off-leash dog-walking in Prospect Park.

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.

The dead bear cub placement comes just two weeks after another hunting advocate dream come true:  the NJ first fatal bear attack in NJ since 1852. I’ve been to the meeting in New Jersey over bear hunts as a journalist. Hunters scream that they need to shoot bears lest some naive suburbanite get killed. They claim that anyone who is against hunting is naive and if liberals should have to live with them in their backyards. (The bears in New Jersey tend to be in the more rural, conservative areas.)

What many New Yorkers may not realize is how frequently a wild predator released in Central Park comes up in the fantasy and arguments . Here’s a satirical post satirical post about petitioning the Wildlife Service to release wolves in Central Park since that was part of their natural habitat. But both Wyoming and Alaska lawmakers have seriously considered the joke proposal.

The NYPD Animal Cruelty Investigation unit was on the scene, the New York Post reports. The bear had blood in its mouth and was probably dragged to its location, the New York Times says. 

Who has access to a bear cub to plant in Central Park? Hunters and people who try to keep bears as pets. Hunting season in New Jersey isn’t until December–which is timed so pregnant females aren’t killed, which, by the way, is the opposite of what you would do to cut a population. It’s entirely possible that someone who kept the bear cub as a pet dumped it there. But why? If you don’t want to draw attention to a dead animal, then Central Park should be your last choice to dump it.

Fire Island Deer in Contraceptive Program

The National Parks Service has come up with a surprisingly illogical new plan for the deer of Fire Island: they want to kill most of them off with sharpshooters, hunters and by capturing and “euthanizing” them. The population of deer has been falling for years, but somehow the Parks Service and New York State have concocted a goal to “reduce negative deer-human interactions” and protect natural and cultural resources.

Locals think it’s all just a political plan to appease hunters that has nothing to do with serving the people of  Fire Island. Most people who live there or visit love their deer visitors. When I’ve visited people get excited to see them in the dunes and eating berries from bushes–despite their habit of eating landscaping. Unless the deer charged into bars wearing anti-gay slogans and stealing the booze, I’d say the culture of Fire Island is pretty much secure. The public has until October 10 to comment on the bizarre plan.

What’s particularly odd about the proposal is that even chronology of the deer saga on the island they’ve had two programs that worked before–telling people not to feed them and Humane Society of the United States’ PZP birth control program.  By the National Parks’ Service’s own account both worked great. Fire Island is where the Humane Society first tested and proved its contraceptive program. The academic study published from the experiment showed that within four years the calving rate fell by 80%. The population density went up slightly, then fell dramatically. Overall the estimates of the deer population went from 500 to 700 at the peak down to about 300-500 now. 

The plan says that deer are hurting native plants and they in particular jeopardize the maritime holly forest of the Sunken Forest, one of the most underwhelming natural wonders of the world, which consists mainly of trees short enough to live between dunes. The Parks Service cites the New York Natural Heritage Program. But even that says the bigger threats are the erosion of the whole island and people walking off the boardwalks. The plant is question is American holly (Ilex opaca)

Wood duck mother and duckling

Something is going on with nests in Prospect Park this season. They’re everywhere. You can’t walk 50 feet in the park bumping into some adorable tableau of chirping baby birds. Half the trees in the park seem to be brimming with exhibitionist robin families.
The big unusual nests this year are green herons and wood ducks (which are living somewhere near dog beach–but where they nested, I don’t know.)

Green herons are nesting on the lullwater and near the less-fancy bridge by the boathouse.

Green heron on nest by the boathouse. Babies are tucked under her wing.

Green heron feeds her creepy-looking babies.

Swans in the park, as if in defiance of a potential plan to wipe them out, are multiplying. They have two nests, one helpfully placed on an island by the ice rink to make for easy viewing.

The father swan normally spends his days chasing off other waterfowl, but he came and sat on the eggs with his wife. Apparently he was alarmed by a mommy mallard and her ducklings nearby.

Baby Swans

I havent’ seen barn swallows build nests on the boathouse yet, just in the tunnels.

Barn swallow nest

These robins are so desperate for attention they build nests at eye level, sometimes below. Still, they’re fun to watch.

Robin nest

Robin’s Nest

It’s treat to see any bird who isn’t a robin building a nest.

Catbird nest

Blue jay nest, sort of sloppy

Sparrows mating in the traffic nest pole.

Mystery Egg

Always a crowd pleaser, mallard ducklings.

Mommy mallard teaches babies to dive

Snapping Turtle digs nest

Cardinal nestlings