He befriended 4,000 dogs to get their side of the story
Advocate helps document lives of New York’s canines
Dogs in New York City have a miserable life — that is what Ken Foster kept hearing. How could they not? Many live in tiny apartments. Most do not have backyards to romp around in. They are bored at home all day while their owners toil long hours.
Foster’s job is to help dogs (and cats, too). He runs a community outreach program in the Bronx for the Animal
Care Centers of NYC, a nonprofit that operates the city’s animal shelters. The program provides free vaccinations, training and food to pets whose owners are struggling financially. Foster, 54, also writes books about dogs.
He has met more than 4,000 dogs in their homes, in their neighborhoods and with the people they love. Lots of them are happy. So Foster and a photographer, Traer Scott, decided to tell some of the canines’ stories in a new book, “City of Dogs.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: What did you learn about how dogs live in New York City?
A: People live a variety of amazing, different kinds of lifestyles in the city, and dogs do as well. I think we think of dogs strictly as pets, but we went to
JFK Airport, where there are dogs that work and love their jobs. They are mostly looking for agricultural contraband, but they also go through the mail that comes through, like every piece of mail. They go through people’s luggage on the conveyor belts. It’s like a game that they’re playing all day long. We should all enjoy our jobs that much.
Q: What is an example of a dog living the good life?
A: There’s Oz. He’s a pit bull mix in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan. His owner, Noah, is a trainer and has this chain of gyms across the country called Rumble Boxing. Oz often goes to the gym and sits, waiting for classes to be over. He lives in a great apartment with a nice roof deck. He’s got the spoiled life. I like to say, and Noah doesn’t disagree, that he needed to maintain his dog in the lifestyle he deserved.
Q: You even found dogs on Rikers Island. What are they doing there?
A: The Rikers dogs are spending eight weeks, usually living in a cell with inmates who are charged
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with caring for them and training them. They come from different shelters. The men who are assigned to them work in teams, so part of it is also about really learning to work with other people and build team skills. It’s a mutually beneficial exchange.
Q: What can dogs teach us about city life?
A: We come from different cultures, we speak different languages sometimes, and yet if there’s a dog in front of us, we can find a way to connect.