City-dwelling dog owners are marking their “colonial” territory with pooches who are “gentrifying” neighborhoods, critics say in a bizarre online debate.
Sparking the controversy was a story in The Cut that delves into the growing hostility between dog owners and the dog-free in New York.
The article quotes Mia, of Prospects Lefferts Gardens, the proud owner of two terriers, who noticed a growing anti-dog sentiment brewing on her community Facebook group.
One post about picking up dog poop eventually spiraled into bonkers accusations that the pooches of PGL were “gentrifying the neighborhood.”
Mia, a New York-born Latina, told the outlet upon reading this she wondered “Are they saying that only white people have dogs?”
Another woman with an off-leash dog was apparently confronted in Prospect Park by someone filming her with her cellphone camera.
“She was asking me why I thought I was special, why my dog didn’t need to be leashed. Was it because of my white privilege?
In a viral tweet this week, an X user ran sparked further debate.
“Dogs in large cities are essentially settler-colonial—a way for their owners to move into and occupy more of the urban space than they are allotted while making it everyone else’s problem,” the tweet reads in part.
nypost.com
