This city is going to the dogs

It seems like every New Yorker has a dog these days. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs and adopting one is a mitzvah, but if you’re not prepared to properly train your pet, it’s the most selfish thing a city dweller can do — other than hanging wind chimes, of course.

This city is overflowing with terrible dog owners, and their unwillingness or inability to prevent their pets from negatively impacting the rest of us is one of the many things making New York an increasingly miserable place to live. And it’s not just the noise.

First, let’s discuss those retractable leashes. The law states that a leash must be no more than six feet long, but thanks to thoughtless owners, a lack of enforcement, and Mary A. Delaney, inventor of the first retractable leash back in 1908, our sidewalks are lousy with these pedestrian obstructing tripwires.

A quick Amazon search yields no retractable leashes under six feet — most are over 15 feet long — so if you use one you’re a wanton criminal who belongs in the hoosegow. The whole point is to let the dog roam more freely, which kinda defeats the purpose of leash laws, i.e. to prevent your mangey mongrel from accosting or otherwise mutilating innocent bystanders.

Also, despite rumors to the contrary, standing on the corner Tweeting while your pooch is locked in orbit like a defecating tether-ball is not a walk.

Speaking of nature’s call, I’ll give credit where credit is due: Lots of owners pick up after their pups nowadays, but it’s still not nearly enough. In my neighborhood near Stuyvesant Town, remnants and full movements dot the sidewalk like landmines in the demilitarized zone between the Koreas. Go for a walk at night or in the snow and you’re playing Russian roulette with your Reeboks.

Long leashes and forsaken feces, however, are trivial compared to the audible assaults of a disobedient hellhound. Whoever first observed that a dog’s bark is worse than its bite must’ve been a New Yorker. A noisy dog is the bane of bedtime bliss and the mauler of mellow mornings.

Just as quickly as a dog can turn a house into a home, they can turn a decent building into a slum tenement. From warm pee stains on the hallway carpeting to the pungent yellow puddles on the elevator floors, every surface is a toilet and every wall a tantalizing target for leg-lifters. Have you ever seen a single cop show where detectives end up in a dead prostitute’s apartment and there isn’t a barking dog in the background? Of course you haven’t, because barking dogs are the greatest aural indicator of squalor and urban decay.

A neighbor of mine has two dogs. She’s nice enough, but every time someone throws away garbage, my hallway sounds like a prison yard. Instead of training her dogs, she exacerbates the problem by engaging them in remonstrative conversation. The more they bark, the more she admonishes them, and the more she admonishes them the more they bark.

They bark when it’s dark and they bark when it’s light, they bark in the morning and all through the night. They bark when a guest arrives at their door, they bark at the ceiling and they bark at the floor.

They bark when the neighbors converse in the hall, they bark in the summer and they bark in the fall. They bark in the winter and they bark in the spring, they bark and they bark when they hear anything.

The incessant yapping, baying and howling is never more than a few minutes away, and never far enough in the past to keep from anticipating the next nerve-grating soliloquy — and there’s no recourse whatsoever. Sure, you can call 311, but if you wanna talk to a wall I’d recommend a trip to Jerusalem. I guess if you could somehow prove that all dogs voted for Trump, our progressive politicians would be silencing them faster than you can say cancel culture, but alas, only once Democrats’ have passed their fraud-inviting election reforms will the impediments to canine suffrage disappear.

Thus far, the only solution is an iPad and some good headphones. It’s not a perfect remedy — I can’t hear my doorbell, the smoke alarm, or a murderer breaking into my apartment — but I’d rather miss a surprise visit from Publishers Clearing House than listen to the endless cacophony of canine clamor to which I am otherwise subjected.

It’s so easy for man’s best friend to become your neighbor’s worst nightmare. Consider this, for all we know: Son of Sam would never have killed anyone were it not for that infernal barking dog commanding him to do so. Please, save some lives. Either train your dog or adopt a cat. You don’t even have to take them out for walks.