No One Can Eat 50 Organic Dog Treats

Cutest Hillbilly Puppy Ever! 

One of the best things about working on the Upper West Side is the parade of freaks you encounter every day. I mean that in the most loving sense possible.

Up here, a preponderance of middle-aged Jamaican ladies window shop while strollering their surprisingly white offspring. Centuries-old rich widowes attend Weight Watchers meetings and confess that the most effective dieting trick is standing in the nude and looking in a mirror, and admonish anyone who admits to having a menstrual cycle as "showing off". Reality TV castoffs confab at one of the 3,000 local Starbucks outlets. Hyper-polished teenagers evaluate the few calories they have allowed themselves to consume that day while in line at Cold Stone Creamery. Doormen at the Dakota building suffer an endless stream of tourists trying to get a picture of the ghost of John Lennon and Rosemary's baby (HR calls this "Dakota fanning"). And the likes of Frances McDormand and Calvin Klein casually browse through Urban Outfitters.

Most importantly, first wives and trophy wives alike take their precious pups to Canine Ranch, the new "doggie spa" on 72nd Street. Apparently there is another Canine Ranch about 10 blocks away, and one in the Hamptons. I think this is a brilliant location strategy - ensuring that there is always a Canine Ranch where you need one.

Canine Ranch offers boarding and grooming and a "dog barkery" (a play on dog bakery, it's the cleverest pun I've heard since Canine Ranch!), but it also sells lots and lots of adorable stuff for the most fashionable UWS doggie. There are elaborately bedazzled t-shirts and designer fleece hoodies, there are faux fur leashes, there are chew toys shaped like cell phones and sock monkeys, there are even clocks made of books featuring famous fidos such as Lassie and Benji.

And there are treats. The aforementioned dog barkery notwithstanding, there is an ice-cream freezer full of stuff, and there are Newman's Own organic dog treats.

Now, we all know that I love my dog, Angus. He is a sweet, adorable little friend and I am very proud of him. But, let's face it, he's eats cat shit. He eats baby shit. He'd probably eat his own shit if familiarity didn't breed contempt. And this is not a starving dog. No, cat shit and diapers are treats that he must sneak to get. Soiled napkins and used tissues are secret indulgences when HG and I aren't looking. He spends most of his waking hours hanging out near the trash can - at one point in the hopes that someone would pop the lid, until he went and learned to pop the lid on his own. A walk is not just a walk but a hunt for discarded chicken bones. In short, this dog eats shit. And I defy anyone - in any tax bracket - to show me a dog who doesn't.

Mr. Newman, I sympathize with your cause, I enjoy your salad dressing and salsa, but I must object to your organic dog treats. My dog gets enough organic, and it isn't pretty.

Sure, Paul Newman will likely counter with the argument that Angus is not an uptown dog, that he is, in fact, something of a hillbilly.

It's true, I'd admit to Paul (at this point, I think, we'd be on a first name basis), Angus literally comes from country trash. He was rescued from some dumpster in Kentucky, where (animal cruelty alert), according to the boarder, people throw a bunch of dogs in and then gas them using a hose from some rusty old El Camino's tailpipe (I don't know that it's always a rusty El Camino, but I think it's safe to assume as much).

Egad! Paul would cry out (those famous blue eyes beginning to tear up), what kind of monster could do that to a trashcan full of dogs?

I can't even imagine, I'd say. And if you've ever seen Angus as a puppy, you'd be even more horrified. I didn't think it possible for something to be this cute... uh, other than you in Hud, of course.

Thank you, he'd say with a smile. I did have a certain way with denim, didn't I?

Yes, but we are getting off the subject, I'd counter.

Oh, right, he'd recall. Right! Where do we find these murderers?

Calm down, I'd say, patting the sweet old man on the shoulder. That's not the subject either. The subject is your ridiculous, overpriced gourmet dog biscuits. I know the proceeds go to charity - in this case, animal-related causes - but by selling them, aren't you encouraging the kind of crass consumerism that is antithetical to everything your work is about? Have we as a culture become so celebrity obsessed that our dogs must eat like Paris Hilton (not her dog, Tinkerbell, but Paris Hilton herself, who famously created the Four Dog Biscuit a Day Miracle Diet [TM])? True, Angus's obsession with trash and feces may have something to do with his bad childhood, but I don't think so. I think dogs are there to eat what we drop on the floor and don't want to sweep up. They are meant to lick our babies' hands clean so we don't have to sully another washcloth. It is their nature to rid our streets of unsightly stray Chinese food leftovers. Should we deny that nature by shoving an expensive, tasteless biscuit in their mouths so that our neighbors might see that we have a little money saved?

ZZZZZZZZ, Paul would respond, having obviously nodded off during my tirade.

Just another day on the Upper West Side.