Warp and Woof
There were many dogs at the Meet the Breeds event at the Javits Center, and an enormous crowd. You could not see the dogs, only clusters of human bodies in heavy coats around a booth, indicating where a dog might be. If you joined a cluster then, a few minutes later, you could press forward to be in the presence of a Bernese Mountain Dog, or a Ridgeback, or a Shiba Inu, and could lean in for a carefully supervised, permitted pet. Everyone was being very gentle, and the dogs abided us, even though it must be a lot for them. Many wagged their tails.
It was a strange experience. That’s why we went, on a day so cold we could hardly bear to leave the house. You have to take advantage of New York being ridiculous. Plus the Javits would be warm.
Outside the event, PETA had big ads up encouraging people not to buy pugs or other heavy breathing dogs who’ve had their snouts bred out. No one was protesting, though. Inside, the pugs were doing well enough. I guess they don’t know what they’re missing, snoutwise.
My first thought on entry, given how hard it was to see a dog, was Meet the Breeds indeed. Every kind of body and identity and heritage seemed to be in attendance. All of us at once. Then again this isn’t a modular synth meetup or a conversation on zoning; it’s dogs. So it was mobbed, which made it an amiable shitshow, in so many ways. (Dogs were frequently trotted to a relief area behind closed doors that I want to imagine as a garden of canine delights. But was probably a depressing plastic-sheeted poop area.)
Waiting in a line to pet a purebred seemed a little much. It has elements of the king's touch curing your scrofula, and I am uncomfortable with the idea of breeding things. When people get excited by breeding, bad things follow. Look at England. Still, I am but a man, and I patted an Irish Setter’s rump. I reasoned that the dog was Irish, like me, and that we might share an understanding.
Speaking of, one of the odd things about the published and occasional correspondence of Queen Elizabeth was how often she mentioned breeding dogs and horses to her family, which I think connected to her own sense of breeeeeeeeeding. One comes to the conclusion that she saw herself as a horse. This was reflected in her demeanor. Also I don't think she had that much else going on.
I can't think of a more loaded word than breeding. Given that it encompasses sex, race, power, and so forth, we can't approach it directly, only from angles. (When they do it it's eugenics, but when we do it it's finding a soulmate who looks exactly like, but is absolutely not, your sibling.) The whole point of America is that we hold the individual above their breeding. Sadly we have exchanged that for a primitive and lazy concept of genetic purity. I know people like to talk about capitalism or democracy but those are downstream of the actual function of this country, which is to find someway to balance medieval European tribalism with the concept of citizenship. Everyone has to participate for their entire life in this and we can never move on. Right now we are in a regressive phase, which is how we ended up with this bunch of insane Celtic-Teutons in charge, all of them ready to cut off their anglo snouts to spite their piggy faces. Anyway I saw a St. Bernard.
Meanwhile, the crowd kept exceeding my expectations. Folks seemed unified by gentleness and curiosity. Even though tickets cost $40 (kids cheaper), people understood that petting is a privilege, not a right. One dog barked three times, but that was all the drama. An hour into the experience I saw a woman, off to the side and away from everyone, sitting on the floor with a schipperke cradled in her bosom. Together, they looked like the Virgin and child.
She murmured for fifteen minutes to the dog, not looking up at all. I know it was this long because my son and I were waiting for my wife and daughter to come out of the oversubscribed bathroom. Eventually the dog was soothed and they went back to work the booth. That was beautiful.
Although maybe the dog should stay home? Dogs like to leave the house too, though. They get to see all their dog show friends. Maybe dogs get a kick out of it?
I saw a woman in a knit hat that said “CROISSANTS.”
The boundary between human and animal kept blurring as we wandered. I saw a chihuahua in a diaper. I saw a writhing pekingese in little sneakers. An agility course had been set up—but it was for small children, who were scrambling through tubing and stumbling over sawhorses without dignity or distinction. No one cared much what the humans looked like or thought. We weren't the main event.
Almost all of the dogs were very calm, obviously trained on the patting. Many dogs simply slept. The corgis were superstars, so while two were on show, four backups (or understudies?)( were chilling in cages off to the side—big-eyed but calm, away from the press of bodies—until they were summoned to adoration. I'm sure the Queen, who loved corgis, would have liked having a cage when people came out to admire her breeding. Maybe that's what palaces are. Maybe we should crate our royalty.
It was time to go. I get why people do this, but I'll never do this again. It's too ambiguous. But it's always fun to see what a society gets up to with its spare time. Later that night I'd watch the Super Bowl, and have the same reaction.
As we went to leave I looked up at the great glass ceiling of the convention center and thought about how the Hillary Clinton campaign had gathered right here, at the very end, anticipating victory. There had been tons of foam pieces—made to look like pieces of broken glass—hanging above, from nets. They had intended to drop those as the election was called, to prove that the glass ceiling had been broken. The crowd waited and milled around. Hope frayed. After a long, agonizing while someone came out—Podesta maybe?—and sent everyone home. Fight Song went unplayed, and the foam never fell. I wondered, looking up, what they did with all of it? Maybe some garbage bags full were sent to the Smithsonian. It occurred to me, in a regretful thought, that it might be very handy in the dog relief area.
It was time to stop thinking. I was glad to see that you can gather many thousands of people in a big room, on a very cold day, on the edge of a city, and that throng could keep it together enough to treat dogs kindly. That is very good. I prefer mutts.
