Bilbo Baggin'

A Dog's Guide to How Not To Be Seen in NYC

The trajectory of Maria’s and my life with Newton was forever changed by a simple discovery: A black mesh Sherpa tote bag, which I found on a high shelf at a pet supply store on Columbus Avenue in the Summer of 2007 for 50 dollars. 

The bag wasn’t anything to look at, which was the key to its effectiveness. It appeared to be something one might carry groceries in; it definitely wasn’t a fashion accessory. Nothing about it, other than the logo (easily clipped off) suggested a dog, cat, possum, ferret, or any other animal might be inside.  Newton’s white markings were on his chest and the back of his legs, so when he sat or lay down against the black material, he became virtually invisible.

From the start, Newton loved this womb-like apparatus, in which it was obvious he felt completely safe, pressed against the side of one of us.  Through the ample mesh he could see everything that was going on around him, and knew where either I or Maria was at any moment.  It was as if Maria and I were marsupials going about our daily forest chores with Newton in our front pocket. 

***

Newton came to associate the bag not only with security and proximity to us, but with travel and adventure. Whenever one of us reached for it, he’d rush up, waiting for one of us to unzip the top, so he could jump in feet forward, his head bobbing up on one side or other a moment later. Newton quickly devised a way to let us know when he wanted out, when he was in: a barely audible grumble, followed by another if he thought he hadn’t been heard.

A quick command, “Out!”, was Newton’s cue to jump gracefully out of the bag onto the street to land perfectly on all fours, whereupon he'd do a quick right-left look, like a Hollywood ninja.

Over the course of the coming months, and through the bag, Newton saw the inside of subway cars, restaurants, bars, markets, hotel lobbies, and even Port-A-Potties.  

Often Maria or I would be having a conversation with someone, and forget Newton was in the bag. When he moved, or managed to work his muzzle up through the top zipper, he’d cause a start:

“Good Lord! What’s that??” The interlocutor would invariably say.

“A dog!?   You had a dog in that bag the whole time?” people would ask. “How amazing — You sure he doesn’t mind sitting in there?” 

On a few occasions, a passerby witnessing one of Newton’s chrysalis moments — the transformation from bag-dog to dog— would ask if “our dog” was getting enough air. It was easily demonstrated that both ends and the top of the bag were made of light mesh.

I never had a dog-in-a-bag before; and prior to Newton I had no reason to pay much attention to what people were carrying in their purses and totes. But going through our daily routines, we began to notice things one didn’t normally see, simply because one wasn’t looking for them: a back-room, underworld biome, in which legs and chairs mixed with bags and midget dogs. I’m sure servers at watering holes, sports bars and steakhouses across NYC knew about this invasion -- and mostly adhered to a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

***

The ease of transport, and Newton’s almost complete chillness made it very easy to take some risks that, in retrospect, were probably inadvisable. Particularly with respect to nice restaurants, where, once in a while, Newton couldn’t control his enthusiasm for the smells that penetrated his lair. If he smelled any kind of red meat, lamb in particular— Newton would raise the pitch of his grumble. A scene could almost always be averted for approximately three minutes, by popping little bits of bread, cherry tomatoes, or cucumber slices into a gap in the top of the bag as a distraction, until the inciting material passed, or was consumed.

But if the bread ran out, or the temptation was too overpowering, I’d be forced to create a diversion, as I pressed more and more pieces of bread through the hole in the top of the bag.

The worst incident occurred in an upscale restaurant with a prominent lawyer acquaintance, whom we had not had time to forewarn.

He ordered the lamb. And Newton hadn’t had breakfast.

As we waited for the food to arrive and Maria chatted up our friend, I was looking around for an escape path.

The meal came and, sure enough, Newton’s grumbles escalated. I feigned a restroom emergency and attempted to vault over an empty chair, while shoving a tiny piece of bread into the bag. Newton pushed his face up and out of the mesh top, the pressure from the sides of the bag contorting his eyes. The lawyer let out a high-pitched scream.

Most of the restaurant looked over, as cleared the chair and stumbled out of the place, into a snow drift, Newton beside me looking perplexed. I waited for Maria to make our apologies, pay, and meet me at a cafe a few blocks away.

***

In the winter months we discovered that we could take Newton to movies, where he’d be perfectly content to fall asleep in our laps, inside or outside of the bag. Once again, no one would ever know. Occasionally he’d indicate with a nudge that he’d like a piece of popcorn.  Trains and subways were also were no problem, even though Amtrak and Metro North did not allow dogs at the time.

All of this was before the ‘service animal revolution’, a.k.a. the doggie liberation movement, when more and more people flaunted their dogs, and increasingly, other animals, in public places.

Perhaps our transgressions constituted an opening salvos in that war, as more and more people got small dogs for companionship, and wanted the convenience of being able to move with them everywhere.  By 2014, we’d all entered a new Age of Anxiety, in which therapy dogs were ubiquitous, and worn like certification of emotional scars — or the need of a hug. The care of Newton, was a constant in my and Maria’s day-to-day existence.  It solidified our connection to him, and his to us, and ours to each other.  Without knowing what his job was, exactly, he did it extremely well.

Next Up: “Abu Dhabi Bound”.