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They curl up on the fringes of New York City royalty, positioned to eavesdrop on conversations no one else can hear, but unlikely to pass along the details. They come from a well-worn class of political companion, intended to generate sympathy for even the surliest of leaders, but have failed to persuade the city’s first man to accept them as his best friends. They stand, and sit, as symbols of compromise in the private life of an uncompromising mayor.
They are Bonnie and Clyde, the yellow Labradors who reside in the Upper East Side town house that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg shares with his girlfriend, Diana L. Taylor. Just don’t call them the mayor’s dogs.
Four years ago, Ms. Taylor, a former superintendent of the state’s Banking Department, presented the animals to Mr. Bloomberg as a Christmas gift. The dogs could stay, he told her. But she would be looking after them.
Both seem to have honored the spirit of the agreement. Ms. Taylor, 56, has provided the dogs with an idyllic urban life that many owners would hardly recognize: Central Park strolls, a professional walker, extensive puppy-training sessions.
And the mayor has tolerated them — in his kitchen, at his campaign functions, even at the wedding of two aides in July, at which Mr. Bloomberg officiated. He has been known to correct those who ask about his dogs. “Diana’s dogs,” he says.
Still, dogs have occasionally found their way onto the periphery of Mr. Bloomberg’s public life. His daughter Georgina has spoken against mass breeding. Bloomberg-themed T-shirts for dogs are widely available online. (Options include “Mike Is My Homeboy,” “Bloomberg for President” and “Free Plaxico.”) And Mr. Bloomberg has made fleeting reference to Bonnie and Clyde in political contexts, remarking that the city’s parks had become so safe under his leadership that “my girlfriend goes and walks the dogs at 1 in the morning.”
But in a country whose 16 most recent presidents have had dogs, according to the Presidential Pet Museum in Williamsburg, Va., Mr. Bloomberg stands apart as one of the few public figures who have declined the opportunity, quite literally given to him, to use the animals to burnish his Everyman credentials.
Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, was asked if Mr. Bloomberg liked the dogs. If he ever walked them. If he considered them his own.
“Ms. Taylor’s dogs have nothing to do with the mayor’s public life,” Mr. Loeser replied in an e-mail.
They have, however, wrought occasional havoc on his town house, chewing hand towels, a bench in the breakfast nook and the hood of Ms. Taylor’s jacket. On one occasion, while gated inside “their half of the kitchen,” said Robert Haussmann, their former trainer, the dogs nudged a crate toward the edge of their pen, climbed atop it, and leapt over to taste the freedom of, well, the other half of the kitchen.
“They had a whole grand theft thing worked out,” said Mr. Haussmann, who features a testimonial, attributed to Ms. Taylor and Mr. Bloomberg, on his Web site. “I want to come back as Mayor Bloomberg’s dogs.”
He could do worse. Most mornings, Ms. Taylor walks her pets in Central Park, often for more than an hour, unfastening their matching red leashes once they reach the main walkway, as is permitted in much of the park before 9 a.m. Fellow owners often shout instructions at their dogs, lest the animals decide that life in the urban wilderness might be more attractive than a return home. Ms. Taylor, parkgoers said, never has to yell.
On a recent weekday morning, as their owner strode in front of them in black athletic pants and a jacket vest, sipping from a coffee cup, Bonnie and Clyde greeted the day in typical fashion. Bonnie darted across the pavement, hazel eyes wide, stopping to exchange pleasantries with a Portuguese hound. Clyde busied himself with a small stick he had found beside a tree, pinning it beneath his paws as he chewed.
Soon, a parade of dogs converged on the edges of the Great Lawn, but Bonnie and Clyde played mostly with each other, as they often do, according to park regulars. At one point, an Australian shepherd-poodle mix, Sydney, bounded over, tongue dangling, then sped off in an attempt to inspire a chase. The Labradors declined. They remained in their places, nestled against each other, and soon Ms. Taylor leashed them and returned to the town house, where the entrance is guarded by police officers at all hours.
Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesTwo protesters, Henry Perkins, left, and Fred Pantozzi, cleaned up at Zuccotti Park on Thursday.
