Every year as winter approaches, I notice a change in my dog Little Man’s personality. At eight pounds, he is a small guy in a big city and he has known nothing else but this city his whole life. That is, except for travels to my sister’s in New Jersey and our month out in Colorado, New York City to him is nature.

Yet every November to December he begins his winter depression.

Little Man is known in some Wikipedia circles. He has accompanied me on the New York City Wikimedia picnics, and he also illustrates a few articles. You can see him playing fetch on the campus of Colorado College on the article about fetching; he is being cradled by Ingrid Newkirk, the President of PETA, on her wiki biography; overlooking the city skyline on the roof of my apartment with fat activist/Big Beautiful Woman Kira Nerusskaya (photo, right, from a Wikinews interview); on a platform waiting for a train on a subway station article; on the Chihuahua page he is illustrating the aggression for which the breed is stereotyped (the story behind the shot is here); and on animal communication he is demonstrating the desire to protect a bone.

He used to illustrate evolution and selective genetics in this photo of him (and his friend Paco) next to a couple of Great Danes; although the image no longer illustrates artificial selection in English, it still does in Portuguese.

He appeared on the People’s Court in defense of a dog rescue.  Two elderly neighbors have keys to my apartment so that they can take him for company when I’m at work during the day.  He is not yippy, but a brawny little bruiser with swagger and lots of heart.  He is much loved in my neck of the woods.  I last blogged about him when he was in a rivalry with my sister’s dog Riley in Colorado.

At eight pounds, he loves heat almost to an extreme.  No matter how piping hot the fresh-from-the-dryer laundry is, he burrows into it like a mole.  If the radiator is wheezing, he sits on the shelf over it.  Summer makes him happy, but fall makes him…confused.

He sits inside the apartment at the window, and the sun through the pane makes him think it is so warm outside, just like in July.  So he begs and begs and begs.  He becomes restless if I don’t take him out.  I relent, knowing the moment he steps outside the brisk front door of the building, his ears will go down and he’ll immediately sit to show he won’t move until we turn around.

We go through a month of this before it sinks in: no more sunshine and squirrels to chase through the leafy grass.  It’s winter, and it’s cold.

In December, Little Man falls into discontent.  He no longer yearns to go outside, but he stirs.  He doesn’t know what he wants but he knows he is bored in the apartment.  Playing with me only takes an hour.  He wants to see what is happening on the block!  He wants to patrol.  Yet, not in this weather.

So as the snow falls, so does Little Man, staring from his shelf at the window that sits atop the steam radiator warming his stomach through the wood.  Wondering, when will it be comfortable to search for the squirrels through the leaves?

Until that time arrives again–if it arrives again, he frets–he cloisters in caves of blankets.

Last week I attended an awards ceremony for filmmaker and activist Donny Moss.  He received the Nanci Alexander Activist Award for his ground-breaking documentary, Blinders.  It was a star-studded event with Alec Baldwin, Kristen Johnston, Ingrid Newkirk and Dan Mathews.

Ingrid, PETA’s president and co-founder , does not just care about four-legged animals.  When I interviewed her for Wikinews/Wikipedia we had this exchange:

Ingrid Newkirk: No, I want to more closely associate humans with the other animals, because if we took Biology 101 we know we are all animals. It’s just that we decide we’re gods, they’re trash. That’s just invalid, wrong from every point of perspective: scientific, moral and everything else. I want people to relate to the other animals.

The film must be seen to be believed.  It documents the carriage horse trade in New York City that has been romanticized and glorified in films and television.  In reality, it is a brutal and unsafe anachronism that still afflicts our streets.

The horses are not properly cared for.  To cut down on stench-producing urine, their water supply is kept to a minimum.  These horses never see a spot of greenery.  Never.  No, they don’t run around Central Park and they do not go off to a field somewhere.  They go from the burden of carting up to five tourists at a time all day to brick tenement buildings transformed into stables where they are housed in 10×4 cells (they can’t lie down).  Many have lung problems because their snouts suck up the pollution and carbon monoxide on the street.  They are literally nose to tailpipe.  The film shows the horses competing with speeding taxi cabs and trucks for space on Manhattan’s congested roads.  For the laws that exist, there is only one enforcement officer assigned, and he is only on duty from 9 to 5.

Then there are the deaths of the horses.  Some get spooked and dart out into traffic, smash into cars or trees, or break their legs and have to be shot.

And when they are too old or infirm to continue, they are brought to the slaughter house and shot.  Very few go to “greener pastures.”

Please, if you are a tourist, do not patronize this industry when you come to the city.  There are so many other things to do – have a guilt-free trip to what I think is the greatest city in the United States (excepting for the cruel horse carriage trade).  Thank you, Donny Moss, for opening my eyes where before I had never given it much thought.