I admit it: I’m a dog-stroller person. I’m also self-aware enough to know how silly it looks. I clock the side-eyes when I am pushing my Shih Tzu, Darla, down the street. I am very aware of the moms with baby strollers who look at me like “Are you kidding?” and the smirkers who assume that I must be some kind of cartoon villain who spoon-feeds her dog filet mignon from a crystal goblet. (I don’t, to be clear.) I am aware of the sentiment in the least charitable corners of the internet that putting a dog in a stroller is a sign of a mental disorder. I try to stay out of those corners.
It all started with my neighbor putting a Little Mermaid baby stroller in the recycling area in our building. It was a cheap, foldable thing. My husband, Mark, thought it would be funny to plop Darla in it for a cute photo op. As soon as she was deposited, her entire body melted into the seat, and she wore a contented expression that we had never seen in the year or so since we adopted her. “Uh-oh,” we said to each other.
We were still getting to know Darla. We had won her in a contest — sort of. Early in the pandemic, when we were all working from home, my mom called me one morning to insist that I turn on the TV: It was pet-adoption week on “Live With Kelly and Ryan,” and the hosts were hoisting up a confused-looking little black fluffball. My mom told us that Mark and I should adopt her. “Mom,” I said, “isn’t this a national TV show? I’m sure they get like a million applications.” But I filled one out anyway — pretty well, apparently. A few days later, Darla was ours.
Mark and I quickly discovered that the one weird thing about Darla (all dogs have at least one weird thing) is that she walks really slowly. Like, turtle slow. There’s nothing wrong with her; she’s just leisurely. Darla had belonged to backyard breeders and birthed at least two litters. When they were done with her, they gave her away. I wanted to let her putter around as she pleased, but this presented some problems. There’s a lovely park a few blocks away, but Darla walked so slowly that by the time we got there, it was usually time to turn around and go home. Wouldn’t it be great, Mark and I thought, if we could high-tail it to the park with plenty of time to romp around? Now, mermaid stroller in hand, the world opened up to us. As we rolled Darla out of the building for the first time, we saw our future.
At first we were happy just using “the Ariel,” as we called the stroller. Then one day I was in Target, and I saw someone pushing an actual stroller made for dogs. She was loading items into the stroller next to her contented pup. The multitasking, the efficiency, the ability to not leave a dog home alone and bored all day — I wanted all those things. Seventy-five dollars later, my transformation was complete. I posted a picture on Instagram of Darla’s big round eyes peeking out of her shiny new throne. “IT’S HAPPENING,” I wrote.
The stroller’s many practical benefits quickly became obvious. I could wheel her all over town while doing errands, and the stroller had enough room to fit her and a full bag of groceries. There was another storage compartment underneath — great for taking packages to the post office. In summertime, we packed the stroller with supplies and picnicked in the park, our iced coffees clinking like wind chimes along the way, snug in their cup holders. In winter, we didn’t have to worry about sidewalks covered with paw-stinging rock salt. The stroller gave me a way to understand what Darla wanted. Whenever she got tired of walking, she did little hops up against the stroller and I would heave her in.
For every onlooker who scoffs, there’s another who gets a real kick out of her. Children are endlessly fascinated. Construction workers are smitten. Old ladies fawn over her. Sometimes friends and neighbors will ask me in hushed tones, “Should I get one?” Yes, I say. Go easy on yourself. Life is hard enough.
The assumptions that the stroller cynics make — that you can bestow “too much” affection on pets, that it’s “overly” indulgent, that coddling your pets is somehow bad for them — don’t make sense to me. It’s just functional and compassionate. No one is seriously replacing children with pets. (And if they are, so what?) And unlike with children, spoiling your pets won’t make them grow up to be jerks.
The best thing about the stroller, though, is that it was an invitation to our neighbors to stop and talk with us. Mark delighted in regaling Darla’s admirers with the story of her adoption. He would pull out his phone on the street, in the park, in an elevator, to show his unsuspecting victims screenshots of Kelly Ripa holding Darla aloft like the Lion King, while I rolled my eyes, laughing at his shtick and chiming in with my parts.
On July 5, a few years after we adopted Darla, a terrible thing happened. Mark died of complications from lung cancer. It was unexpected, and I was in shock. In the months of my post-trauma haze, the only times I could muster the ability to leave the house was to walk Darla. I wheeled her to the park daily, and we sat by the East River. She likes watching the boats go by. I do two things every single day: I miss Mark, and I walk around the city with my dog in a stroller. People smile at us, and I smile back. I forgive the ones who snicker. You never know what someone’s going through.
Amy Kellner is a senior photo editor at the magazine.
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