GINDELE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It is unusual these days to see inhabitants of the city walking anything other than a dog at the end of a leash, though there are a handful of residents who have attached to leads such creatures as cats, ferrets, pigs, parrots, goats and (in one case that would be difficult to believe were there not photographic evidence that appeared the front page of the Option last year) a baby bear. Charlotte Hachting, a sociologist who studies animal ownership patterns in the West, was not responsible for snapping the picture of the leashed bear, but she has included it in her new book, Man’s Blessed Friends: Pets, People, and What They Can Tell Us About Each Other. Hachting will appear at the Page And Stage bookstore Friday to discuss Man’s Blessed Friends, and in particular the controversial last chapter, which uses historical data to extrapolate trends in future pet ownership. “I won’t give too much of it away,” Hachting said. “I want people to come to the the talk and I want them to buy the book. But habits change just as everything changes. People grow bored. Let’s just say that in fifty years, people may be walking the same pets on leashes, or different pets, or that the people themselves may be the pets who are walked on leashes.” The author is better known to locals as as Charlotte Lacaillade, a star athlete at the Pomerantz school who set state records in various sprint-distance events and went on to a decorated college career. She has not owned a pet since her beloved German Shorthaired Pointer, Gindele—named for the great 1930s women’s javelin-thrower Nan Gindele—passed away five years ago, and says she will never own one again.