With Hoboken Dog Book And Instagram Pages, City's Gone To Dogs

HOBOKEN, NJ — Bob Bowdon works in downtown Hoboken for an education policy news service, and became fascinated with the mile-square city's pets after taking walks at lunch with a colleague.

"Getting one or two new dog pictures became kind of a daily ritual," he explained last week, "kind of a brain palette cleaner during the workday, actually."

Bowdon shot more than 2,000 photos of over 300 dogs, and he says that only twice did owners turn him down, seemingly because they were in a hurry.

He said last week, "Not only are people made happy by looking at pictures of dogs, but most owners love their dogs being celebrated."

Bowdon recently self-published a book of Hoboken dog photos called Doggedly Hoboken, using the Motif Photos service, and launched it at Little City Books, the independent book store at 100 Bloomfield St. He says the first batch sold out quickly.

He also runs the Instagram page DoggedlyHoboken, with 752 followers.

Other Insta

Bowdon is not alone in his dog worship.

Dozens of Instagram pages feature Hoboken's pooches, for instance, George the Hoboken Bulldog and Paloma the Chihuahua. Someone recently organized a local bulldog meetup. (If you want Patch readers to find your pet on Instagram, leave a comment and a link below!)

And with so many people now working remotely amid quarantine, there's been a run on puppies. That has also left people open to pet scams, like this person in Westfield who was scammed out of nearly $2,000 he paid for a pup online. (Read the story to find out how to avoid such a scam.)

Bowdon's book can be found here.

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