Why I Love NYC - Dog on Track

September 19, 2006, New York Times, by Joe Sexton

Tales of the City: Dog on the Track

The Q train announcement was, actually, decipherable. That's not to say it was easy to comprehend.

"This train is being delayed. There is a dog on the tracks."

That got the attention of the folks in the front car of the subway train. Cell phones popped open. Calls were made to work. Doubts were expressed as to whether this excuse would be accepted.

"There's a dog on the tracks."

"Hi, I'm at Parkside Avenue. I'm going to be a while. There's a dog in front of the train."

"I don't know what kind of dog it is. But it's been running in front of the train, and it does not look tired."

It was nearly 8:30, the height of the morning commute, the train at a halt along the outdoor tracks in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. The dog, which one passenger said had been seen on the Newkirk Avenue platform before it took up the next stage of its adventure, had led the Q train in a weird sort of herding exercise for several stops, striding unfazed in front of the train as it inched along cautiously behind the dog. The dog — with a visible collar and estimated by one passenger straining to look out the front car at no more than 2 years old — hardly looked up on its trek. It stuck inside the two rails, stayed clear of the electrified third one, and appeared, for quite a while, well, headed to a breakfast meeting in Manhattan.

But now the dog, and the train, had stopped — a standoff of understandable, shared confusion.

"Lord," said one passenger..

Track fires; sick passengers; terror scares. The routines of subway delays had conditioned the people in the front car to most anything. But this seemed different. Someone called 911 — which said call 311. Of course.

"Is a transit employee doing something," the 311 operator asked the caller.

It was hard to tell. But seconds later, a transit worker emerged from the motorman's cab. He smiled, but did not seem to have a plan.

"Is there anyone here who has a familiarity with dogs?" he asked.

The question provoked general astonishment. The man seemed to be asking if there was anyone willing to drop down onto the tracks and corral the dog.

"He could have rabies," said one passenger.

"Honk the horn," said another.

"Call the cops," said another.

"Yeah," offered a third, "they have a K9 unit."

People smiled. Sort of.

Chastened, the transit worker stepped out of the train's front, scooped up the dog without incident, and the Q train lurched back into action.

Someone had taken a picture with a cell phone. Good, it was agreed. Evidence. Otherwise, who would believe it.