Archie Freedman, a 9-year-old border terrier, isn’t a dog you want to mess with. Neither is his owner, Nancy Freedman. The downtown duo, who live near NYU, have a swagger most street-smart New Yorkers recognize instantly. But for many, they are quite literally barking up the wrong tree. “Yeah, we do it,” says the unapologetic Freedman. “My feeling is, where else is my boy going to pee?”
The “where” Freedman refers to is the sidewalk planters on which city dogs tend to do their business, but as of late has become a battle ground between the establishments that tend to them and the dog owners who regard the territory as their pet’s private toilet.
“Yes, I have planters in front of my building — and does he go every day? Yes. Have people said things to me? Yes,” Freedman, 50, admits. The personal facilitator adds, “During tulip season, I don’t let him. My only rule is that he’s not allowed to pee on tulips.”
Her friend uptown, Tara Bryan, 38, takes it down a notch — or 10 — from her feisty pal. She’s a new dog owner too terrified to tangle with her neighbors. “I try to be mindful of why people wouldn’t want soiled planters,” she says.
“I feel very differently from owners who push back,” she adds, alluding to Freedman. “I try to steer my dog away from the plantings.” The apologist and owner of 2-year-old Havanese, Joey, feels the heat — even before she leaves her UWS building. “The super lurks in the hallway watching the owners go by,” she says.
It’s not hard to sympathize with well-intentioned neighbors: “It would bother me if I took the time to plant, and I saw people disrespecting what I try to do,” says Bryan. And she doesn’t let owners who blame the common law-breaking behavior on their dogs’ whims off the hook, either: “It’s your pet. You need to control their behavior.”
Forget fire hydrants. These days, dogs of NYC are so used to the good life that they want to stop and smell the roses just like everybody else — with a little something extra.
“It’s an issue,” says Shelley Clark, an UES communications expert, who knows the wrath of neighbors’ glare all too well. Her 2½-year-old French bulldog, Claude, catches plenty of flak from overly curious neighbors who want to know her pooch’s business. “In my experience, often all a dog needs to do is sniff the flowers or greens in a planter to evoke hostility and panic from area residents and doormen,” she says.
“I try to keep Claude from ‘soiling’ sidewalk planters, but I draw the line at preventing him from the joy of sniffing! Not too long ago Claude bounded into a planter to ‘smell the roses’ and that was all he was doing, when a woman stopped to inform me, ‘That is the worst thing I have seen in a long time!’ My response was, ‘You should get out more.’ ”
And such is the typical pas de deux between dog people and planter people.
“They only go about a million times a day,” laments one doorman at the posh 15 Central Park West, where he says his hands are tied about shooing away the offenders. He never excoriates the owner or dog for doing their business in the planters he takes pride in tending, even if it is against the law not to clean it up.
“The Department of Sanitation enforces the New York public health laws that owners pick up the excrement. That’s a New York state public health law. Fine for failure to pick up canine waste is $250,” says Kathy Dawkins, spokeswoman.
Longtime West Village dog trainer, 28-year-old Jessica Jacobson, knows better than to commit the crime herself, but that doesn’t stop residents from shooting death glares at the mere sight of her and her German shepherd.
The one-time dog walker remembers, “My manager was very clear that doormen and people can get extremely upset when dogs urinate on the planter bed. For one, urine ruins the plants. And two, some of the planters are dedicated to the loss of a family member or friend. Ever since then I don’t allow it.”