Manhattan – Page 3 – Pain In The Bud

Ode To Cosmo: The Best Dog I’ve Known

Cosmo, the goodest goodboy, showed me how much love animals have to give. Without Cosmo, there would be no Buddy.

Growing up, my experience with dogs was mostly limited to Sparky, my friend’s demonic Chow who had sunk his teeth into every member of his human family and most of my friends.

Four of us formed a punk/rock band as teenagers and when we’d practice at my friend Rob’s house, he had to put Sparky into the fenced-in yard for our benefit. As we jammed and I fell into the revelry of trading off guitar solos, I’d look over and see that hellspawn of a canine, face pressed against the glass, slobber oozing from his mouth as he radiated hate. I’d taunted Sparky once, stupidly and ignorantly, and he never forgot it. That glass was the only thing between me and a mauling of biblical proportions.

I was not fond of dogs, so in 2010 it was with reservation that I agreed to dog sit Cosmo, the Chihuahua-terrier mix adopted about two years earlier by my brother and his wife.

Cosmo was a lost puppy wandering the streets of Oceanside, California, when he was picked up by animal control, transferred to a shelter and put up for adoption. We don’t know exactly when he was born, how he got separated from his mom or how long he wandered the busy streets of that city.

What I do know is that it was impossible to stay ambivalent about him for long. Not with his zest for life, his puppy-like energy or his sweet nature. “Sweet” is an over-used word when it comes to animals. I wouldn’t use it to describe Bud despite the fact that he’s my cat and I love him, but it describes Cosmo perfectly. He doesn’t have an angry bone in his tiny body. He’s trusting, he has a huge heart and if you’re one of his favorite people, he’ll never let you forget it.

My brother and his wife saw their opening when I let the little guy jump into my lap, something I’d never allowed any animal to do. At the time it was so out of character for me, my brother took a photo to prove it happened.

So when they moved from Oceanside to Manhattan and planned a long weekend away, they asked me to dog sit and I agreed. At the time I was working evening shifts as a journalist for Newsday, the New York tabloid. I went from my office on 35th St. near Madison Square Garden to my brother’s apartment on 65th, gave Cosmo his dinner and took him for his walk. It was eventful: He barked and charged at a dog three times his size as if challenging the big mutt to a battle of nerves, and must have sensed me looking at a cute girl walking her dog because he made a beeline for her and refused to relax until we spoke to each other. Cosmo was an excellent wingman.

I put Cosmo in his crate that first night. It’ll be fine, Mike and Jen said. He’s cool with his crate, they said. He won’t keep you up all night, they said.

None of that was true. Cosmo barked and barked until I let him out of his crate, then barked some more until I let him into the bedroom and on the bed.

And that’s how I went from someone who could barely deal with animals to a fool letting a Chihuahua-terrier mix cuddle with me so I could finally get to sleep. Better to let the little stinker on the bed than be a zombie at work, I thought.

We fell into a rhythm that week. I’d come home, walk him around the quiet upper west side at night, and we’d watch a movie together on the couch before crashing.

While Bud is typical of his species and has the inexplicable ability to claim 80 percent of the bed despite his small size, Cosmo’s footprint on the bed grew smaller that week as he gently pushed down any barriers I’d previously maintained. I’d wake to find his little paws resting on my arm, or his body squeezed between my arm and my ribcage. Chihuahuas are true burrowers.

Cosmo traveled the world with Mike and Jen. He was a California sunshine dog, then a New York City dog, then a Washington, D.C. dog. He was with them for their years in Japan and, until very recently, their post in Ukraine.

Cosmo hated every minute in that dark, frigid country, even before Vladimir Putin started a bloody war there. He was overjoyed when the family moved from bone-chilling Ukraine back to sunny Virginia, unaware that he’d missed a war by a week though undoubtedly bummed that Mike, his favorite human, remained in the country for the next five months helping Ukrainian friends.

Before they left for Tokyo in 2017, a veterinarian told Mike that Cosmo, already suffering from several ailments, probably wouldn’t live another two years.

That was more than five years ago. Cosmo made it to almost 15 years old. He was mostly deaf and nearly blind. His eyes became milky from cataracts. He limped and it took real effort to pump his little legs when Mike took him for his walks. He wasn’t able to jump up on the couch anymore, and signaled when he wanted a human to pick him up and put him in a comfortable spot.

By the summer of 2022, the little guy was on borrowed time.

My brother, ever stoic, seemed to accept it as he cradled Cosmo like a baby and told me Cosmo had cancer one night last summer. Mike doesn’t often show his emotions, but I know he’s crushed. He loved that dog. The dog adored him.

I’m not good at masking my emotions, at least when it comes to things like this. I started writing this blog post that same night before bed, a few hours after Mike told me Cosmo was dying. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of Cosmo as a puppy wandering the streets in Oceanside, and his days as an old, tired dog. (I can imagine my brother reading this and thinking, “You pussy.” But hey, we’re all different. I’m the witty one, obviously. Also, I have more hair.)

Before we crashed on that night last summer, Mike and I watched a movie. Cosmo looked at me and gestured with his paw, signaling that he wanted up. I picked him up gently, put him down on the couch, and he nestled into my side like old times.

“He hardly does that with anyone,” Mike told me.

But that’s because we were pals. Cosmo was my buddy before there was a Buddy. Without Cosmo to show me animals could be a source of great joy, there’d be no Buddy in my life and no Pain In The Bud. Buddy would be living with someone else, and his name would probably be Rufus, or maybe Mr. Jerk. It’s difficult to imagine anyone loving him like I do, or being best pals with him. In a very real way, Cosmo gave me that gift.

Back in 2019, before PITB had its own domain and was read by a handful of friends and relatives, I wrote about Cosmo. That’s him in New York at a family gathering at my aunt’s house, and on the balcony of the apartment in Tokyo. It’s shocking to see how much he aged in only a few years.

Cosmo in Cali — Cosmo on the beach in San Diego. As a puppy he was separated from his mom and siblings and wandered the streets of Oceanside before animal control scooped him up. Credit: BoBB (Brother of Big Buddy)

At the risk of overdoing the anecdotes, I think the following one is illustrative of what a good dog Cosmo is.

A few years ago a bunch of us were hanging out at night drinking beer and talking around a backyard fire pit when everyone went to crash except Jen, Mike’s wife. She wanted to stay up a while longer and I agreed, so we went inside to get more beer with Cosmo following us in. The temperature had dropped and the little guy was shivering.

When we went back outside, Cosmo hesitated by the door. He wanted to hang but he was freezing and didn’t know I’d brought out a few blankets. But when I called to him he came anyway, jumped into my lap and looked at me with gratitude when I swaddled him in the blankets and moved closer to the fire. He trusted me. He knew I wasn’t going to let him freeze.

I will never forget the adventures we’ve had together. The time in California when he was barely more than a puppy and got away from me on a walk, leading me on a chase through the parking lot as I wondered how I’d explain to Mike and Jen that their beloved dog was gone. I did an entire lap around the development and was gassed out when I saw the little guy had returned to the house and was waiting for me on the front steps with a look on his face that seemed to say “Where ya been, dude? Couldn’t keep up?” Cheeky bastard.

The time I was dog-sitting again and he refused to do his business on his morning walk, then dropped a fresh turd on the gleaming marble floor of the Manhattan high rise where Mike and Jen lived, right in front of a rush of commuters exiting the lobby elevators.

Cosmo napping — In his layer years Cosmo could give Bud a run for his money when it came to napping. Credit: BoBB or SiLoBB.

The subsequent dog-sitting stints, when we’d hang out on the couch and watch horror movies, jolting upright together during jump-scares.

The time we all went hiking in a state park near Albany and a huge bird-of-prey began circling above, apparently deciding Cosmo would make a nice lunch. (Jen had to pick him up and cradle him protectively on the walk, and the bird eventually went in search of easier pickings.)

The first time I babysat for my newborn niece, fresh off of learning how to change a diaper by watching a Youtube video, and began to freak out as she cried and Cosmo barked. They seemed to be stuck in a feedback loop and for a panicked moment I thought I was in way over my head. Cosmo took the arrival of the girls in stride. He’d gone from the center of his human parents’ world to still very much loved, but forced to share time, affection and attention with one little human, then another. He never took it out on the kids even when they occasionally played too rough, as all kids do.

And of course that first hesitant occasion in California when I allowed him to climb into my lap and decided not all animals were bad after all.

If not for Cosmo — and, coincidentally, a friend’s super friendly tuxedo cat who was also named Cosmo — I would not have known my allergies could be managed as an adult, and I would almost certainly not have looked into adopting a cat. I was coming off a brutal few months of seasonal affective disorder and for the first time I gave the idea serious thought. Cosmo showed me that animals could be good friends, stress relievers and a constant source of entertainment, as well as loyal and never judgmental. (Well, mostly…I do think Bud’s judging me every time I go to the kitchen and don’t fetch him a snack.)

Buddy owes a debt to Cosmo even though he’d never admit it.

It’s the night after Thanksgiving 2022 and I’m trying to finish this blog post after letting it rest for months. On Thanksgiving Day, Cosmo didn’t seem to recognize me in a noisy house full of family, but tonight he ran to the door to greet me, barking happily and pressing his paws against my legs just like old times. He spent the next few hours in my lap, soaking up my body heat as I scratched his head and back.

It’s Dec. 29. Cosmo spent the holidays by the fireplace, swaddled in blankets. Normally no one, human or animal, would sit that close to a fire. For Cosmo, it was the only way to stop shivering as the heating system struggled against record-breaking cold.

Cosmo burrowing — Cosmo loved to burrow anywhere he could.

It’s now early August and my brother is visiting with his wife and kids. This is the last time I will see Cosmo, but neither of us knows it.

I’m relieved to see he recognizes me. The last time he was in New York there were too many people, too much commotion for an old dog. Now he wags his tail and jumps up like a puppy, and I bend down, rub his head and tell him how happy I am to see him.

Aug. 16, 2023:

Cosmo died at about 11:30 pm in Mike’s arms, in Mike and Jen’s bed, his bed. He’d been having a rough couple of days and after he’d been sick a few times and soiled himself that evening, it became clear the end was near. They were at their vacation home in the Outer Banks at the time, and the nearest emergency vet was more than an hour away. Cosmo wouldn’t have made it anyway.

Cosmo was a happy dog, but he was never happier than when he was with Mike, and I have no doubt that there’s no place he’d rather have been, no person he’d rather have holding him in those last few hours. He died with the people who loved him most, after living almost 15 years as part of their family.

I spoke to my brother the day after Cosmo passed and checked in with him a day or two later to ask how he was handling Cosmo’s death.

“Honestly, having never had a pet before, I was not expecting to be this impacted by his death,” he texted back. “It’s shitty.”

Indeed. I mourn Cosmo knowing that the day will come when I’ll mourn my own best little buddy.

If there’s any real downside to opening your home and your heart to an animal, it’s the fact that their time on Earth is unfairly short. Some people say the pain of losing them is too much, but no matter how difficult it is, it can’t compare to the years of companionship, memories and love. As my canine friend crosses the fabled rainbow bridge, he’s taught me one last lesson about pets: To cherish the time we have and remember that, one day, we’ll happily trade a puked-on carpet, a broken guitar or a scratched-up chair just to have a little more time with them.

Can Cats Solve New York’s Rat Problem?

When even the mayor can’t keep rats from overwhelming his property, it’s clear New York is losing its battle against rodents.

For the second time in seven months, one of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ own health inspectors has ticketed him for rat infestations at the Brooklyn brownstone he calls home.

Because it wouldn’t be New York without things turning into a circus, the man who unsuccessfully ran against Adams for the mayorship, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, took advantage of the mayor’s embarrassment by bringing two of his 16 18 cats to Adams’ block and holding a press conference on the sidewalk where he touted felines as the solution. (Adams, who is well known for his hatred of the rodents, famously held a “rat summit” at Brooklyn Borough Hall in 2019, “gleefully” showing off a new rat-killing contraption to reporters.)

Introducing reporters to his tuxedo, Tiny, and tabby cat, Thor, Sliwa said Adams was missing the most obvious solution to the rat problem — cats — and offered to become the city’s “rat czar” free of charge.

“Like most New Yorkers, [Adams] is frightened of rats,” Sliwa told reporters outside the mayor’s brownstone. “He’s tried everything but it’s time that we revert back to the best measure that has ever worked — and that’s cats.”

As we’ve noted before on PITB, Sliwa and his wife are dedicated cat servants, perhaps overly so. They currently house 18 cats in their Manhattan studio apartment, Sliwa said on his radio show this Sunday. Some of them are the couple’s pets and some are fosters for their rescue.

sliwacats — Nancy and Curtis Sliwa with one of their cats. Credit: Matthew McDermott

The rat problem in New York is real and, sadly, as bad as people make it out to be. You can hear them at night in many neighborhoods, and it’s not unusual to see them briefly caught in the glow of streetlights before scurrying into the shadows again.

I’ll never forget watching an entire conga line of them at the 125th St. subway platform. They just marched out of a hole in the twilight, each one bigger than the last, going about their business without any concern for what people might do to them.

And the answer, they know, is nothing. Because New York’s rats aren’t regular rats. They’re well-fed freaks, ballooning to enormous sizes thanks to the abundance of garbage cans to eat out of and the way garbage is collected in the city. Back in 2015, video of a rat dragging an entire slice of pizza down the steps to a Manhattan subway platform went viral, racking up more than 12 million views and earning the rodent the title Pizza Rat:

People who aren’t from New York and have never visited are probably shocked to see garbage piled high on the sidewalks of every street. New Yorkers are supposed to put the garbage out the night before pickup, but no one really observes that rule, and the mounds of trash grow for days before sanitation removes them. It’s a feast for the rats, and any solution has to start with cleaning up the garbage situation.

In the winter the cold weather prevents the contents of the trash from rotting, so the stink isn’t as bad, and sometimes the trash mountains are covered by snow.

But in the summer, when the tree-lined avenues get their green canopies and flowers bloom in window boxes, the city reeks. On hot days, the perfume of New York is rotting trash and the overwhelming smell of urine wafting up from the subways. Sometimes I think of what the Japanese, with their spotless streets and shiny subways, must think when they come to New York for the first time.

In October, after the city fielded a 71 percent increase in rat complaints over the previous year, the city introduced a new law making it illegal to put trash on the sidewalk before 8 pm ahead of pickup the following morning. The change hasn’t made a dent in the rodent problem.

ratssize — A 2015 study by Matt Combs of Fordham University documented the enormous size of New York City’s rats. Credit: Matt Combs

In any case, New York is not a good place for cats. Thankfully we have a huge and generally well-funded network of rescues that get kitties off the street and pulls cats and dogs from the city’s animal control system before they’re due to be euthanized, but strays who fall through the cracks don’t last long.

Indeed, when the New York Post talked to one of Mayor Adams’ neighbors shortly after Sliwa’s latest press event on Sunday afternoon, the woman said she’d like another cat to patrol the area around her building. The last one, she explained, had been run over by a car.

I don’t really expect anything to come of Sliwa’s plan to use cats in rat-infested locales. The red-bereted radio host is hawking the scheme because he likes to be a thorn in the mayor’s side, and because it generates free publicity, especially from the city’s tabloids and local news channels.

But if it ever comes to fruition, and people really expect strays to handle their rat problems, Sliwa and company better have a plan to keep the cats safe from traffic.

Who’s That Handsome Kitten?

This kitten looks very familiar…

I was digging through some old files when I found these photos of a young Buddy the Cat:

handsomebuddy2 — “Hey, where’s that steak you promised?”

These were taken in my brother’s apartment on the Upper East Side. It was early summer, so Buddy was probably about four months old, give or take.

He spent almost the entire day in the yard where he made friends with Cosmo the Dog and had lots of fun chasing insects, running around and rolling in the grass. He made friends with every human there, of course. Then when he was tired out from all that playing, he had a super special treat: Steak from the BBQ.

I’d love to bring the little guy to more social events and barbecues, but alas, almost all of them involve dogs who are not Cosmo, and I’m not sure how Bud would do with three or four dogs running around, let alone 20+ people. Smaller gatherings sans pups are a better bet.

Got A Rat Problem? Get A Cat To…Befriend It And Groom It?

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?

Cats and humans began their grand partnership some 10,000 years ago, when kitties handled humans’ pesky rodent problem and people repaid the felines with food, shelter and companionship.

Now the deal’s off, apparently.

Yesterday a Reddit user shared a video titled “When you get a cat hoping it will help you get rid of the big rat in your yard.”

The video shows the user’s new cat, a tortoiseshell/calico, “solving” the rat problem by befriending the rodent, playing with it and even grooming it.

The video has amassed almost 86,000 upvotes in 24 hours.

The odd friendship between feline and rodent is not without precedent. Studies have shown that cats are not effective rodent hunters in urban settings where rats have gone unchallenged for so long that they rival or exceed the size of most members of Felis catus.

In certain neighborhoods of New York City, for example, researchers observed cats essentially ignoring massive rats and in some cases eating trash side by side with them. The largest rats, apparently aware of the truce, are equally unconcerned by the presence of the cats. Other rats were more cautious around kitties.

The scene reminded me of the time my brother wanted me to bring Bud over to handle his rat problem. At the time he was living on 88th St. in Manhattan, less than a block from Gracie Mansion. His apartment had an unusual perk for Manhattan living — it was a spacious ground floor flat that opened up into a private, fenced-in backyard with grass and a few trees.

Mighty Bud — Tremble before him! Buddy the Mighty Slayer of Rodents!

In fact, it was one of the first places I took Buddy after adopting him. He was just a kitten, maybe 14 weeks old, and I brought him with me on a warm summer day when my brother had a few friends over for a barbecue.

Buddy made fast friends with my brother’s Chihuahua-terrier mix, Cosmo, and spent the day playing with his doggie cousin, frolicking in the grass and chasing bugs around the yard. Then he got a treat: Steak from the grill, chopped into tiny Buddy-size pieces.

Having a backyard in Manhattan was awesome, but there was a downside. At night the yard was like a stretch of highway for marauding rats who ran across it in numbers with impunity, probably en route to raiding the garbage bins of a bodega on the corner of 88th. The rats were so emboldened and so numerous, you could hear them scurrying across the yard at night.

My brother proposed bringing Buddy over and letting him loose in the yard after dark, letting his claws and predatorial instincts thin the rodential herd.

I declined, using the excuse that Bud could pick up diseases from going to war with the rats. That was true, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have come to that: At the first sign of those rats, Buddy would have run screaming!

(We don’t acknowledge that around him, of course. Officially, Buddy was not set loose upon the Manhattan rats because it would be grossly unfair to unleash such a meowscular, brave and battle-hardened feline warrior upon them.)

It’s one thing if Buddy won’t kill rats. He’s a wimp. But as the Reddit video illustrates, we are apparently closing the chapter on 10,000 glorious years of human-feline partnership, and officially entering the Era of Zero Reciprocity.

We do everything for our cats, and in return they nap, eat and allow us to serve them. From their point of view, it’s a fine deal.

Meowscular Buddy! — Just look at those meowscular guns and vicious claws!

Six Trees

Hello from Tokyo!

I’m here! Not much to show yet, as I didn’t quite nail the settings for properly shooting such a light-ambient city on my first night walk around Tokyo.

The immediate neighborhood is midway between Roppongi and Akasaka, not far from Tokyo Midtown. The word Roppongi means “six trees,” and the name dates back almost four centuries when the area was marked by half a dozen distinctive zelkova, also known as Japanese elm.

Here’s an aerial photo of the district:

As you can see, there’s a nice balance between green areas and urban density. Whereas New York has a very straightforward grid layout and you can get a feel for the dimensions of the city by looking down certain avenues running the length or width of the island, it’s easy to see why some people say Tokyo feels never-ending, one big sprawl of twisting streets, hills and alleys.

There’s also a verticality that gives it a different feel from American cities. Manhattan is famous for its urban “canyons,” but oftentimes there’s a clear demarcation between residential and commercial, both horizontally and vertically. Stores and restaurants are almost always on street level, while upper levels are either apartments or offices.

In this part of Tokyo the restaurants, shops, karaoke bars and movie theaters are just as likely to be on the 10th floor as the first, and the signs are often inscrutable even when they’re in English: A sign for one place, called Seven, includes no information about what kind of establishment it is beyond a cryptic piece of text that reads “I like when fight pure.”

Maybe it’s a boxing gym where they’re really sensitive about the rules. Or maybe it’s a bar where Japanese women mud-wrestle. Either one seems just as likely.

Below are some day shots, including a koi pond in the courtyard of my brother’s building. I’m not sure if Buddy would lick his lips or run in terror from these koi. They’re pretty big. And orange. And they jump! Any one of those things are enough to strike fear in the heart of the scaredy cat. Strange to think they can live as long as 35 years.

Meanwhile back in New York…

Looking at this photo, it almost seems like Buddy’s laying there dejected, thinking “Woe is me! Where has my Big Buddy gone? I am lost without him!”

Yet my mom reports Buddy waited for me and barely ate the first night, then by the second night he realized he’s still getting treated like a king, so he’s over it. The little jerk!