This year things were different. The artists, it seemed, knew better than to endow their dogs with details that could be snapped off, ripped off, or bludgeoned off. With the exception of my personal favorite, Doggie Wash, who came with sign warning those who approached that they were being monitored by video camera, none of the dogs on the street had any vulnerable details. The few more elaborate dogs—including Halfmoon Dog with a replica of Henry Hudson’s ship on its back—were displayed in the safety of shop windows. But the cautionary measures seemed unnecessary, since the dogs seemed to get little of the attention—for good or ill—they had gotten the year before. They appeared on the street without much fanfare and disappeared without much notice, and through the summer people were rarely observed touring Warren Street for the purpose of admiring the dogs. Of course, there were fewer dogs this year—41 as compared with 62 last year.

This year’s Gala Benefit Dog Auction on Sunday, October 11, at Helsinki on the Hudson, also played out in a somewhat lower key. Last year all the Columbia County glitterati seemed to turn out for the event. This year, not so much. Last year, unless you were prompt and assertive, you might have had to forego brunch altogether in the press of the crowd that made it hard to get to the buffet tables or to find a place to enjoy your meal. This year, after the auction, Chef Danyell set out paper trays and aluminum foil and urged everyone to take home doggy bags.

The bidding on the dogs also fell short of last year—whether that was attributable to the recession in the economy or in the enthusiasm for the dogs is unclear. The bidding peaked sooner than last year, with the fourth dog breaking the thousand dollar mark, bid up by its sponsor Mary Bartolotta, who dropped out when the price reached $1,500. It turned out that 1609 Canine, created by Raymond Sperzel and sponsored by Coldwell Banker Bartolotta, was the big moneymaker for the day. Only two other dogs reached four figures—Queenie, created by Gretchen Kelly and sponsored by the Columbia Paper, which sold for $1,000, and Priority, created by Andrew Pellettieri and Fern Apfel and sponsored by the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, which sold for $1,250. Six of the 41 dogs went for the minimum opening bid of $300, and one dog—Charmer—had no takers at all, inspiring David Colby, President of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce, to quip ominously that homeless dogs might have to be “put down.”

The proceeds from the auction totaled $21,675—less than half the $45,675 brought in by the dogs last year. Of course, last year there were 62 dogs compared with only 41 this year. The beneficiaries of this year’s dog auction are Perform Columbia and the Columbia County Council on the Arts.

The word is that this was the last year for dogs in Hudson, but it’s not clear if next year Warren Street will will be adorned by a different creature (whales, perhaps? or replicas of the library lions?—two ideas that have been floated before) or if the exhibition of public art will move to another location in the county. Rumor has it that Chatham wants the exhibition of street art on the village main street.