Pupper West Side: Garth Spends His Weekends Savoring Absolute Bagels, Admiring Contemporary Art
Name: Garth
Age: 9 months old
Breed: Labradoodle (But there’s also an uncanny resemblance to Snuffleupagus.)
Profile/history: My parents were interested in getting a muppet like me and we turned out to be a perfect match in temperament and interests. We have many shared loves: enjoying the great outdoors, musing over bold, earthy wines, and loafing around the apartment.
Daily routine: We spend lots of time in Central Park since we live right along Central Park West. Around 7:30 a.m., we’ll take our morning constitutional through the park. Mom works at Storm King Art Center so she commutes up there three days a week and works from home with me the other two days. She and I will have long conversations about contemporary and abstract artworks. One day, I’m hoping to earn my own Storm King staff badge and lead group tours. This happens to be a beautiful time of year to visit Storm King and enjoy the fall foliage.
Loves: I really like natural treats and chews like cow’s hoof and deer antlers.
Does not love: Baths. Also – don’t take this the wrong way – but sometimes I get jumpy around police in uniform. Eeep!
Favorite store/business on the UWS: We have so many favorite spots! Part of our weekend ritual is a stop by Birch Coffee on W. 96th and Columbus. After picking up some treats, we’ll take our loot into the park and sip cappuccinos while we admire the leaves and flowers. And no weekend would be complete without a pilgrimage to Absolute Bagels. Love love love an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, or a sesame bagel with lox and creme cheese, or…well, there are just too many great choices.
Favorite treat: Blueberries! And the rotisserie chickens that Mom sometimes brings home from Whole Foods.
Favorite park spot: There’s a nice pond in Central Park, just north of the W. 97th Street entrance that has a pretty bridge and loop path. It’s a special spot.
As a sophisticated art connoisseur, share some of your favorite galleries and museums around NYC. Sure! Well, one of my favorite recommendations is also dog-friendly – the large installations in Madison Square Park. Currently, Leonardo Drew’s “City in the Grass” is on display until December 15th. I’d also recommend visits to The Whitney and the New Museum. And don’t forget to skip across the park and see Alicja Kwade’s “Parapivot” sculpture installation on the Met’s rooftop garden before it closes on Sunday, October 27th!
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If West Side Rag readers are interested in becoming pet owners, we encourage you to consider adopting or volunteering to be a foster parent with one of the many shelters and nonprofits based in and around New York City. These include but aren’t limited to: Muddy Paws Rescue; Animal Lighthouse Rescue; Animal Care Centers of NYC; NYC ASPCA; Humane Society of New York; Bideawee; Social Tees; and Animal Haven.
So great. Now we with dander allergies can no longer go to museums either? Hotels, airplanes, restaurants, now this. It’s a kennel world.
Pssssst this is a tongue-in-cheek piece. Dogs can’t actually talk, nor (barring service animals) go into the Met.
Oh Garth! You are so beautiful!
I loved reading about you – it seems you are a friendly, gentle, and sensitive soul in a furry-four-legged suit. You and your parents are lucky for a perfect match.
I hope to see you some day in the park. And welcome to the Pupper West Side collection.
These are cute articles, but people are willfully ignorant it seems regarding what they feed their dogs. It doesn’t take much research to find out what’s good and bad for canines. Perhaps these parts of the articles are satirical and I’m missing something.
https://canigivemydog.com/bagel
People food is not meant for dogs. Just because they beg for it does not mean it’s safe.
Thanks for sharing! As Garth’s close friend I can attest to his winning personality, his sophisticated palette and passionate interest in visual art. He’s also grown some adult teeth since these pictures were taken.
Does Garth come from a breeder 🙁
People who want to cr*p on enjoyable light-hearted pieces by getting all judge-y and asking stuff like “oh did you go to a breeder” need to just keep it to his or her self. You just want to make things ugly. Are you the same type of person who goes around asking new parents why they didn’t adopt a kid instead? Garth is adorable and though I’ve never been there, I think the art center looks like it is a huge outdoor space so those complaining about being near dander, please enjoy the massive outdoor installations.
I’m really not trying to crap on anyone, and I’m not accosting Garth’s owners (who I’m sure are lovely – and Garth really is beautiful!) in public to ask, “is your dog from a breeder?!?” I asked because it’s not always clear from the articles where the dogs come from, and I think it’s important to raise the point in articles like this – I’m sure more than one future pet owner reads these articles and thinks about getting a dog, and I think the world would be better off if people are steered toward adopting one of the over 3 million dogs currently in shelters.
Kaz-How is ending your post with a SAD face not trying to make anyone feel bad? A lot of people who own dogs have done their homework and know the situation with dogs. Give them a little credit to make up their own minds about what works for them.
Frankly, a lot of people don’t know that there are large number of breeders out there that engage in horrible and inhuman practices, especially people who buy their pups at pet shops. I do think it is important that people know not only “what works for them,” but also consider how the “parents” of their pups are treated.
And as to Labradoodles in general, their creator acknowledges in the Times’ article linked below: “I’ve done a lot of damage,” Mr. Conron told The Associated Press in 2014. “I’ve created a lot of problems.” He said that unscrupulous people setting up “horrific” puppy mills, and backyard breeders who were breeding for bucks, were to blame for producing a glut of unstable dogs that would eventually be euthanized.
In an interview with Psychology Today that same year, Mr. Conron acknowledged that the “doodle” name was “a gimmick” that went global.“People ask me, ‘Aren’t you proud of yourself?’ I tell them: ‘No! Not in the slightest.’ I’ve done so much harm to pure breeding and made many charlatans quite rich,” he said. “I wonder, in my retirement, whether we bred a designer dog — or a disaster!”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/labradoodle-creator-regret.html
Very nice