Co-op and Condo Dogs

Illegal pet pigs may have been grabbing the headlines lately – a 180-pounder named Wilbur just got bounced from Staten Island by the Department of Health – but it turns out that New York City co-op and condo owners prefer more prosaic pets.

According to data culled from citywide co-ops and condos by Tal Weiner, a data analyst with BuildingLink, the top dog with co-op shareholders is a poodle mix. Oddly enough, condo unit-owners, who typically pay more for their apartments, prefer more affordable mutts.

“I was shocked that a poodle mix was the No. 1 dog in co-ops,” Weiner says. “And it really surprised me how dominant the poodle mix was in both co-ops and condos. They’re kind of big.” About 58 pounds on average, which is a lot of pet in a city with notoriously crowded streets and notoriously cramped apartments. This points to a counter-intuitive fact: when it comes to New Yorkers and their dogs, logic flies out the window. While small dogs (15 pounds and under) account for nearly half of the dogs in co-ops and condos, as one would expect, large dogs (over 50 pounds, including poodles), account for a surprisingly high 34.5 percent, or more than one in three. And expense is no object. A dog run under construction in Astoria, Queens, carries a price tag of $1 million.

It may reassure you to know New Yorkers are still different from the rest of America. Labrador retrievers are perennially the most popular breed of dog in the U.S. In New York co-ops and condos, the Lab mix comes in a lowly fifth, behind poodle mix, mutts, terrier mix, and bulldog mix.