Warm Dogs

New photos from New York

Today is Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year, a day invented by marketeers to comfort us with discount codes. But I feel there is only one true consolation to the post-festive slump: fluffy animals in cute coats.

I was in New York City recently to discuss lofty ideas of heaven being revealed in art. But considering the heavenly seemed to make me feel more earth-y. Maybe there was something in the cold city air: the scent of a hot dog or the whiff of a shaggy tail. In any case, something lit up in my brain. The result is this little photo essay, Warm Dogs.

Elliot Erwitt’s photographic series Dogs lives rent-free in my head. For years it has made me laugh, especially the iconic image of a Chihuahua and a Great Dane, shot from street level. Only now did I actually discover it was a set-up for an advertising campaign: he hired the dogs and positioned them! Yet the photograph is still great, and it inspired my wandering around Central Park over a few days between visits to the Met galleries and the MoMA store.

One day, I met Elizabeth and Blossom sitting happily on a bench as the sun rose over an icy pond. “This is a dream come true,” she said. She once lived as an American abroad in London and Paris. Now she was in the other great city, New York. Just for a few months, to complete the set.

A little later, Lola’s starlet quality shone out on the sidewalk. She was tiny but with an aura that made people swerve mid-step. “She sticks her tongue out when she smiles,” I was told, and on cue she smiled like a pro.

I watched a corgi being carried like an empress to a secluded part of the park to, you know, do what one must do. A couple of Japanese Chins peeked out of a bag as their human chauffeur loaded them into her car. “They’re rare,” she beamed proudly.

There are 600,000 dogs in New York City. More than humans in Edinburgh, where I live. Imagine a city of dogs. Not a post-apocalyptic city where packs roam the ruins, gnashing at the limbs of the survivors. Rather, a city of softly groomed, vaccinated, puffer-jacketed rare breeds snuffling up to your ankles. As they distract you with their cuteness, the owners kneel and sweep the tarmac with inverted plastic bags. They rise and, like master illusionists, make the packages vanish. Poop, no poop.

Well, I hope that cheered you. Here’s to brighter days.

The full set of photos is available through Panos Pictures, or contact me directly.

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