The exhibit opens with a faux New Yorker Magazine booth featuring all its pet-oriented covers a la Wes Anderson Isle of Dogs and bright colorful murals of city blocks - like an illustrated version of the film Pets. Then begins what may seem like dry portraiture of 18th century pets and historical facts, but don’t be beguiled into missing out on the text beside them.

History isn’t boring, and the text provides a clear foundation for the rest of the exhibit, demonstrating how the beaver symbolizes the young city as New Amsterdam and how the early settlers adopted many pet practices from the Native American tribes they encountered.

As America developed as a country, sweepingly transforming the landscape of North America, nature and its fauna had much to do with developing the soul of the nation. Wild forests, home to animals and beasts of all sorts, became one with the new republic’s reputation of confronting the tenacious nature of the “New World”, adapting to its seasons, learning to trade animals, ride horses out west, and find loyalty and duty in their adopted creatures.

Although there are glamorous landscapes of pets in nature and with their patrician families, the exhibit does not shy away from highlighting the complexities of animal rights within tumultuous times. Anyone who knows Annie knows she saved Sandy the dog from the Dog Police. The solution for stray dogs was a hot topic, especially the municipal dog pound, established in the city in 1851 on East 1st Street. No joke, they drowned stray dogs and put them in the slammer to avoid any hint of disease and biting issues. They already had enough troubles with the terrible human conditions of shanty towns and tenement buildings, the city didn’t feel the need to infiltrate a rapidly industrializing city with rabies too.