#5 - New York pets II

Other sort of the City's beloved pets include:

- mosquitoes, they say everywhere, on the radio, magazines and newspapers: be prepared, they are on their way!

- cockroaaaaches! I had the pleasure of "meeting" a couple at home... small sized luckily!phew! On the street, though, the other day leaving work and turning the corner there it goes speeding! A lovely juicy big "cucaracha" above the allowed speed limit crossing my way on the sidewalk... eeek!

- at high speed also a couple of mice have scooted away on my way to or out of the metro.

- which takes me to other rodents. Rats, the lords and ladies of the subway. They do not shy away as they exercise back and forth on the rails. And when I mean they don't shy away it's because they really think they own their joint! Underground, one of these days, I step out of the metro car and there it is: one fat rat (no no, no subliminal pun about Wall Street's wealthiest) right in the middle of the platform! And bloody hell the thing didn't move an inch as people poured out! Nonchalant, it just couldn't give a damn, it just stood there! Even the rats have got the nerve in this town!

Oh yeah... I think they name all the above plagues*, in fact.



*Before posting this I realized that actually this list is rather incomplete... Further, there are the pigeons, raccoons, chipmunks/squirrels, seagulls, starlings... The question is: were they in the city before us or did they come as we urbanized? I wonder what/who started the "plague".

#2 - New York pets

Dogs, dogs! An endless number of pooches and hounds get walked everyday by their owners in the island of Manhattan and surely in other boroughs. I have seriously never seen so many elegant Afghan hounds, happy labs, jumpy terriers, fluffy golden retrievers, tough bulldogs, minuscule chihuahuas and prepped poodles in my life! And the worse of this is that I am starting to go insane with such dogged sweetness around! I fear one of these days I might end up on the brink of just crazily hugging one of those dogs without any respect whatsoever!* Of course together with these four-legged, tail-wagging buddies there are doggy gyms, doggy salons and hairstylists, Petco, Unleashed, Furry Paws... places from where all sort of canine paraphernalia comes from: in Winter dogs wear jackets, capes, shoes, socks, sometimes they have on more layers than I do! I am expecting some sunglasses as the Sun starts to be blinding bright this Summer.

*For the record, I really like dogs but I am actually more of a cat lover, but, unlike in the Netherlands, New Amsterdam people don't seem to have a cat on every window... might also be that I see them less as most buildings are not small grachtenhuisjes/ grachtenpanden and ground floor windows are not just there next to the sidewalk with curtains wide open.