Gone to the Dogs

By Amy Lennard Goehner / Hudson, NY

Daisy shopping at Lowe's for agricultural supplies, two words this Upper West Sider had never uttered until leaving the city

Friends often ask me what’s the best thing about having left Manhattan after 40 years and settling two hours north in Hudson.

• “Was it finally having a washer and dryer in my building?” Nah.

• “Was it saying goodbye to Humvee-sized water bugs galloping across the floor?” Nope.

• “Was it buying a week’s worth of groceries for under $300?”  Wrong again.

As a matter of fact:

• Our washing machine just went on the fritz, and it cost us more than a cool grand to replace it.

• We’ve traded water bugs for stink bugs that sound like 747s when they fly into a room.

• And while ShopRite beats Fairway at the cash register hands down, you need a car to schlep those groceries home.

Give up?

The best thing about having left my Upper West Side apartment was finally being able to get a dog, as pets were not permitted in our building.

A love of dogs is in my DNA, on both sides. My early childhood was spent in a 400-square foot garage “apartment” in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, downstairs from my grandparents. My folks slept on a faux velvet green pullout couch in the windowless living/dining/everything room, while my brother Jeff and I shared the bedroom. Despite these tight quarters, we always had a dog. And I’m not talking Chihuahuas or toy poodles. Our Brooklyn dogs included a boxer and a beagle. And a Great Dane: Hercules the Third, allegedly the third largest Great Dane ever bred. Allegedly because that claim was made by our neighbor Jimmy, who wasn’t someone anyone on our East 28th Street block would argue with.

This is a photo of my Brooklyn childhood garage apartment. Now picture a Great Dane inside!

One day Jimmy called my dad, Jerry.

Jimmy graveled: “Hey Jerry. Come on over. I’ve got a present for you.”

Jerry hummana-hummanaed (à la Ralph Kramden): “Sure, Jimmy!”

Jerry survived meeting with Jimmy and came home with Hercules the Third. And on the Third Day of Hercules’s stay, our mom Em (despite loving dogs) decreed to Jerry, “That dog goes or you go.”

The author, her brother Jeff and Fritzi in 1970 after moving on up from Brooklyn

The next dog who entered our lives was with us for 16 years and still haunts my dreams: an eight-week-old Weimaraner puppy . Our family differed on what to name her, so we chose her name the way we settled all major family decisions — playing one hand of poker, always five-card draw. (I think my first words were “ante up.”) And when I won that hand with a pair of 8’s, Em and Jerry each pulled me aside separately and offered me $10 to change my vote. Even at age 10, I was unbribable. I chose the name Fritzi. Here in Hudson, there is a rock that bears her name in the little pet memorial our neighbors created.

In all my dogless years since Fritzi passed, I’d get my fix in the city by hanging out at dog parks or greeting every big dog I passed on the street. When I was a reporter at Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Kids, several times I reported on the Westminster Dog Show. Most memorable as a reporter was a show years ago when the Chinese Crested debuted, that breed once having won the New York Post’s ‘World’s Ugliest Dog’ competition.

I have a framed portrait on our sports wall of Beatrice and Loopy, two of the Chinese Cresteds in the show that year. Before I headed to Madison Square Garden for the show, I had heard somewhere that the breed grew in popularity when the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee started breeding them. “Wow! I have to track that down!” I said to myself.  At Westminster, none of the Chinese Crested breeders I interviewed had heard that story about Gypsy. For pre-internet weeks after, I scoured the White Pages and old news clips and phoned in vain for any leads to check the story out. Alas, I got no further than finding the name of Gypsy’s seamstress but couldn’t locate her.

A quick online search just now confirmed everything I would have needed to write that story. Any fellow reporter who worked back in those pre-internet days can cite their Pulitzer-worthy stories that never got written because we just couldn’t get the skinny.

Once we moved to Hudson, my husband Rick Remington had big dreams of big dogs like his Black Lab named Jetlag, and of course a Weimaraner for me. And another breed I had recently discovered, the Leonberger, a playful, gentle giant. My dad was, um, a gamblin’ man, so what’s not to love about a Leonberger, which sounds like the name of my dad’s bookie?

In Hudson, one of our first friends was Dani, who owned two pugs, Pretzels and Daisy. As a big- dog snob, I had never paid much attention to dogs I had to bend down to pet. But the more time I spent with the pugs, the more I came to appreciate small dogs. Particularly Pretzels and Daisy. The couple had lived together peacefully for five years until the day Daisy went alpha dog and decided she needed “her space.” They started fighting.

During their separation, Daisy stayed with us until the day Dani brokenheartedly announced she had found someone in Rochester who would rehome Daisy. On the morning Dani was to surrender Daisy, Rick and I looked at each other, and we knew. So much for a Black Lab or a Weimaraner or a Leonberger. We plan and God laughs.

Daisy found her forever home with us that morning four years ago. And Pretzels and Daisy are best friends again and hang out often.

So for me, what was the best thing about leaving the city? I bet my bottom dollar that you can guess!

Just ask my husband Rick. He’ll tell you, “Life is better with a dog.”

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I’m a third-generation Brooklynite (when Brooklyn was a place to come from, not go to) but grew up in Newton, Mass. I spent most of my career at Time Inc. as deputy chief of reporters at Sports Illustrated, senior editor at Sports Illustrated for Kids, and senior arts reporter at Time. I wrote a lot about autism for Time, as my oldest son has autism. I currently freelance for AARP's Livable Communities. I’m in my element ghostwriting online dating profiles or shooting pool and drinking a vodka martini — while listening to Ella, Dinah or Sarah.