Murray Hill Ken and the Unleashed Dog

For everyone's sake, just leash your dog.

It is a full time job to be a Doberman Dad. They are beautiful dogs that people want to meet and pet and cuddle with, but they’re not like other dogs. They’re working dogs, which means whenever you see a Doberman or German Shepherd from a working line, that dog is at it’s work place.

Early on, I’d get frustrated with people that didn’t understand working dogs or were too casual around my dog at his work place. Mr. Chow would respond aggressively and I was the one diving in between him and other dogs.

Over time, I adjusted because even though other people and their dogs were the ones agitating him, it was going to keep happening if I didn’t take the proper precautions. While I envy owners with dogs that can go to a cafe or birthday party, I just had to acknowledge mine would fail in an environment like that and ultimately he would get blamed.

When people come to my house, they want to play with Mr. Chow, but it’s a select group of friends that I allow around him because dogs have love languages. Not every dog’s love language is physical touch or quality time. Mr. Chow doesn’t want to be cuddled, he only likes to be pet around the neck and belly, but he does love acts of service. He derives pleasure providing a service and he receives pleasure when you do something for him like throw the ball or cook him a nice meal.

I learn a lot from Mr. Chow and I’m grateful to him for it. He’s taught me that if you truly love someone or something, you have to understand how it gives and receives love. You have to put them in a position to be their best selves and you can’t blame them for failing if you didn’t take their spirit into account. This may seem too woo woo or not worth your time, but I’ve found that I’m significantly happier when I consider other peoples’ feelings.

Mr. Chow has struggled living in 6 different locations since the fires, flying in the cargo of an Alaskan Airline Flight where he pissed himself, and he’s been shaking every time we go in and out of a car or building wondering what’s going to happen. I empathize with him a lot and every night after Senna goes to bed, I go sit with Chow outside.

Saturday night around 8:30pm, I waited until there was nobody in the patio area of my building to take Mr. Chow out for a hang. We were minding our own business sitting on a bench watching UFC Saturday night, when all of a sudden, another dog ran up behind Mr. Chow surprising both of us knocking us off the bench.

I scrambled to my feet with the leash still in my hand nervous about the loose dog knowing that Mr. Chow is trained to protect us. Once I had Mr. Chow calm and could assess the situation, I saw the dog’s owner about 30 feet away with a leash in his hand. I asked him to leash his dog and this is what happened…

In the past, I would’ve punched this guy in the teeth for disrespecting me, but Mr. Chow is my son and I have to be a better person for him. If for some reason, this got out of hand and Mr. Chow bit somebody, I would have to put him down. SO, out of respect for my dog, I ate shit. I asked politely over and over for the guy to leash his dog and he kept going off on me.

I’ve never been verbally assaulted like this without escalating it, but for some reason this insane situation was making me a better person! I was showing patience and empathy and self control and I haven’t spoken to my therapist in 9 months! At one point, I really wondered if I was on molly having a revelation because I’ve literally never had this level of self control.

He kept asking me who I was, which I was never going to reveal. It’s not my style to be like “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” I’d rather people just assume I’m a Chinese guy delivering Chinese food because when I was a Chinese guy delivering Chinese food I got to see who people really were.

Anyway, we walk inside and he continues to tell me who he is, where he lives, while wanting to know who I am before asking to have me removed from the property.

It’s interesting to see someone’s brain work in real time here. He assumes he’s more important than me, more privileged, and that he has the power to throw me off. It’s a lot to presume about yourself and another person.

The easy thing to do would be to relate this to race and while I can feel it and recognize it, I simply don’t want to make this about race. I think it’s about privilege and certain narcissists just think they’re better than other people on their face. I’m not going to assume why he thinks that, but this is what I was wearing.

I dunno if he just didn’t ID that I had women’s New Bottega Uggs on, but you should never underestimate a man in Uggs much less New Bottega. It’s giving WERKING DOG. I’m AT WERK MATT SAUERHOFF.

Sorry, I had to drop the Janice Rossi in 2R.

I stopped filming after this, but he came back holding up the logo of his gym on a phone to intimidate me???????

Here is the logo as seen on Linkedin.

I asked Kosta, our Doorman, what the guy’s deal was and he said that at one point he owned or managed the 29th Floor of the building. I asked Kosta to help me report it to management and he did it immediately, which is why I encourage people to be cool with people even if you don’t just want to do it out of the kindness of your own damn heart.

Maybe Kosta doesn’t own a gym or didn’t invent a method of gym-ing, but the first day I met him I found out where he was from in Greece, introduced him to my wife, they talked some Greek, he met my son, and we’re fam. If someone is going to open a door for you every day, I think it is apropos to acknowledge and respect them.

You never know when you need fam.

I went upstairs to my crib and researched the law about unleashed dogs in New York City.

I discovered that Matt Sauerhoff was in violation of the law and I reported his unleashed dog. Then I wrote a letter to management asking for video of the patio area between the time of 8:30pm and 8:34pm.

This afternoon, I went downstairs to receive an order from our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in NY, Ayat Nyc, when a woman started to circle me. I called my Door Dasher who got lost and when I got off the phone, the mysterious woman took a glove off and extended her hand.

“We come in peace.” She said.

“Thank you, peace be with you as well.” I responded not knowing why this woman approached me, but also acknowledged the possibility that she was just a kind person wishing me peace.

There was an awkward pause as she read my face.

“You met my son-in-law last night.” she said.

“Who is your son-in-law?”

“Matt. Matt is my son-in-law. We all come in peace.”

“That is amazing and I’m happy for you, but your son-in-law absolutely did not come in peace last night. I’ll show you the video.”

She threw her hands up.

“I don’t want to watch. Don’t show me. We just want peace. Let us have peace. My husband is a judge. You see him.” As she nodded toward her husband 7 feet away watching our conversation.

“I am an attorney as well. Would love to see your husband in court for this matter.”

“He is a Superior Court Judge.”

“Who isn’t a Superior Court Judge, but more importantly are you trying to threaten me?”

“No, no, no, we come in peace.”

“Well, I have to wonder what your purpose is informing me that your husband is a Superior Court Judge. What am I supposed to derive from that information?”

“It is just for you to know. I want you to know. We come in peace.”

“I don’t know that feels like you are applying pressure in this situation and inferring that if I don’t let this pass that there will be repercussions because your husband is a judge.”

At that point, her husband motioned for her to leave and they did.

I immediately went online and found their names.

Matt Sauerhoff

Dalia Krinsky (mysterious mother-in-law coming in peace)

Barry H Krinsky (attorney at law)

Unless I’m missing something, Barry H Krinsky is not a Superior Court Judge as Dalia said which makes the whole thing even more hilarious, but he did represent the big homie Sebastian Telfair.

So far, I haven’t received a response from management or Matt Sauerhoff, but I spoke to an attorney who used to work in the Attorney General’s office that reminded me of the Amy Cooper Central Park Karen Case.

I totally forgot that this incident also revolved around the issue of an unleashed dog. Amy Cooper ultimately lost her job, was charged with a misdemeanor, moved back to Canada, and claims that her life is now shambles. In 2023, she penned a letter for Newsweek titled I Was Branded the “Central Park Karen”. I Still Live in Hiding.

While I think it’s corny that she still sees herself as the victim, I don’t think ruining peoples’ lives is the solution. She made a mistake, she got embarrassed, but I don’t know if she needed to lose her job.

On the other end of the spectrum is this Bangladeshi Food Cart Vendor who didn’t know you couldn’t handle pigeons and food. This cart was basically canceled, lost business, and every one’s lives got fucked for clicks.

In a country that constantly struggles to understand freedoms derived from the constantly shifting interpretation of a document written in 1787 (The Constitution), we are always going to bump heads. I think we need to acknowledge that and have empathy for people who struggle to understand “freedoms”.

Those that have, like Matt Sauerhoff, are going to resent when their freedoms are limited and those that don’t have are going to be intimidated when someone like Matt Sauerhoff wants to cross the boundary of their freedom. But I’m sick of the pendulum swing. 2016 it swung toward the right, 2020 it swung to the left, 2024 it swung to the right and I feel fucking schizophrenic.

I don’t want to participate in a cultural or class war. I’m down to participate in an ideological challenge to income inequality in this country, but I don’t want it convoluted with identity despite the fact that I am fully aware so many people are disadvantaged because of identity AND many people take positions solely because of identity.

But making it a us versus them, left versus right, diverse versus non-diverse peoples argument hasn’t worked. We have to crack the identity spine inflaming the body of this country.

Every one needs to accept that this is a diverse multi-cultural country under attack that we need to save. The diverse people are sick of being pushed down. The not diverse people are sick of being challenged and canceled. I can understand both sides.

None of us will survive if we keep pushing. We need to acknowledge each others’ bullshit and call a fucking truce right now.

Maybe in the interim we can just agree that dogs need to be leashed outside.

Dogs on leashes is such a small simple thing that is extremely emotionally charged, but we need to decide once and for all how it is being handled instead of waiting for assholes like Amy Cooper or Matt Sauerhoff to explode and then cancel them over hints of racism and classism because that doesn’t feel fair either.

I thought about sending a legal letter, I thought about a restraining order since we live in the same building, but I’m going to settle on speaking to this asshole face-to-face and demanding an apology. Apologize, know you’re wrong, and do fucking better Matt Sauerhoff.

People suck and we all need to do better, but I think embarrassment is enough. There is now a public record of how Matt Sauerhoff moves and I think he’ll be deterred from moving like this in the future. I saw him on the 29th floor today and he had his head down. He didn’t yell, he didn’t ask me who I was again, and I wondered if he realized how goofy it was to hold up the logo of his gym to my face.

In the past, I’d fight or argue or scream with someone like Matt Sauerhoff and stoop down to his level because I wanted to prove that I wasn’t the asshole. I wasn’t the perpetrator. These days as a father to Senna/Mr. Chow and a husband to Natashia, I got to be better, but it starts with KNOWING I’m better.

I don’t need to prove shit to Matt Sauerhoff or Dalia Krinsky because they played themselves. They’re the ones that are going to have to spend a lot of time figuring out how they got here and it won’t be my problem anymore.

There are monsters in our society that needed to be canceled. We know who they are. But as we move forward as a society, I hope that we can identify the assholes, call it out, stop supporting or enabling them and move on. The energy we have expended on these people isn’t worth it. I believe in second chances, but I also believe that when people show you who they are, believe them.

They have been WORKING on being assholes like Mr. Chow was trained to be a Working Dog. Many, many people enabled and educated Matt Sauerhoff and Dalia Krinsky to operate in this manner and we should be careful around them like I’m careful with Mr. Chow. We can’t expect them to operate like nice well-meaning people.

And we will be happier when we accept the challenge of living with them as opposed to canceling.