Before 9 a.m. Central Park allows dogs in the park off leash. We live half a block from the park. Clinton and Oliver, enjoying an early morning smoke and walk, discovered that in a five minute stroll from our apartment there is a dog jamboree going on every morning around 8 a.m. at The Hill (a wide grassy open space at the top of a hill overlooking the city). I would estimate on any weekday morning there are 20 dogs and on the weekends there are 35 to 40. You get a wide assortments of breeds and muts, as well as scruffy and well groomed, just rolled out of bed, owners all congregating to let their furry friends socialize.
Just a side story - for several days Clinton came home to tell me about a single gal and her dog, Biscuit, who he and Oliver had befriended. After Clinton left, I showed up at the park with Oliver. I saw a very attractive women in her early 40's there with her dog Biscuit. She saw me with Oliver. I never saw her again. I think she had assumed that Clinton was a single guy who had chattered her up. Suddenly Clinton is gone and another woman (me) shows up with the dog. To this day I have never seen the woman or Biscuit at the park. I think Clinton left a broken heart on The Hill.
There are so many personalities there. Dishevelled Columbia students with their rescue dogs, burly black men with their pit bulls named Tiffany and Diamond, elderly Jewish women with their toy poodles, childless women with their "babies" Edward Ruban and Timothy, retired men with their cocker spaniels and collies, and gay men with their miniature greyhounds and labs. This is just an example of my dog park and is not meant to suggest that all Columbia students rescue dogs or all women longing for a baby name their dog after the child that they hope for. 
They say that people look like their dogs. Our beloved Oliver is mix of Jack Russell Terrier and Shih Tzu. His hair is white and wirey, and his belly is pink and bald. Hmm... I think in this case, Jeff and I would agree and deny that he looks like a combination of both of us. We have lived in this apartment for just over a year. We have had a dog since February. And since February we have lived in ignorant bliss about the dog social hour in the neighborhood. But now that we know it's there, and Oliver definitely knows it's there, not taking him seems cruel. Since Clinton left, there was one morning that I did not take Oliver to the park. I had taken him out of his crate around 6 a.m. to use his piddle pad, but I did not wake up for the walk. When I did drag myself upstaris to begin my day I was greeted with a whole role of paper towels that had been on the bathroom floor shredded across the living room. I think he was being not so subtle about his disapproval about me sleeping in. Telling him that Clinton is the morning person, not me, seems useless. Pandora has been let out of the box.
