Dogs

Dogs are a persistent presence in Andy Warhol’s diaries: companions to walk, feed, and worry over, but also a thread connecting domestic life to friendships and the crowded city outside. Archie and Amos anchor the daily routine, while other people’s dogs—among them Lou Reed’s dachshunds and Halston’s Linda—offer points of comparison. Across brief entries, dogs bring affection and obligation into view alongside unease about illness, fleas, and the practical demands of caring for animals.

Companions and household routines

Archie and Amos appear as part of the ordinary schedule rather than as occasional attractions. Warhol takes them out for walks, and their presence can determine what happens at home: when visitors arrive in the rain, the dogs have already been put to bed, and the ringing bell wakes them. On another hot day, he chooses church over work and marks Archie’s birthday with a box of Hartz Mountain treats. The diary records the age uncertainly—eight or nine, perhaps older—making the gesture more definite than the biographical detail.

Dogs also shape the movement between households. During holidays, Warhol notes that his dogs are with Jed Johnson, and on another rainy day they have gone away with him. When Jed decides to move out of the shared home and live in an apartment on West 67th Street, this domestic rearrangement forms part of the diary’s account of separation. The dogs’ presence in these entries is quiet but consequential: they belong to the shared routine that is changing, and their absence is registered as a fact of the day.

A photograph caption identifies Archie beside Warhol in the entrance hallway of his East 66th Street house. That placement matches the diaries’ recurring picture of dogs as fixtures of home life, close to the thresholds through which visitors, work, and the outside world enter. They are not only companions in a sentimental sense; they are part of the household’s daily logistics, requiring walks, attention, and arrangements when Warhol is away or the home is unsettled.

Dogs among friends

Warhol’s visits to Lou Reed reveal how another household’s dogs can become a measure of intimacy and aspiration. Reed’s two dachshunds, Duke and Baron, were acquired after he saw Warhol with his own dachshunds. During a visit to Reed’s home on Christopher Street, Warhol admires the electronic equipment, the neat rooms, and Reed’s easy, funny manner, and describes Reed’s life as the kind he wants. The dogs are included in this portrait of a life that seems enviably self-contained, even as Warhol notices that the home is not entirely free of the ordinary mess associated with animals.

A proposed addition to Warhol’s own household appears after a party at Bill Copley’s place. Copley’s secretary tells him that Tommy, a particularly sweet dog, had accidentally been left out on the terrace during the coldest day of the year. Someone saw the dog and called the police, who came to bring him inside. Warhol says he would like to take Tommy home, and Copley is considering whether to let him have the dog. The episode moves from an alarming mishap to the possibility of a new attachment, though the diary does not say that the adoption takes place.

Dogs also circulate through social occasions in smaller ways. At a dinner attended with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Basquiat gives Warhol the meat from his plate for the dogs; another guest, Silvinha, does the same. Such a gesture makes the animals present even when they are not at the event: the people around Warhol know that food brought home can be put to use. The dogs thereby connect social life to the household routine that follows it.

Care, illness, and unease

Care in the diary is practical and sometimes anxious. Warhol repeatedly considers whether dogs may be sick or carry disease. When Robert Hayes appears at the new office with his dog, Warhol worries about the risks of dogs coming close after being on city streets, and turns the concern toward his own pets. He contrasts that uncertainty with Halston’s rule for Linda, who is not allowed out onto the street and relieves herself inside the kitchen. The distinction is less a general judgment about one approach than a record of how differently the people around him manage the same problem of animal care.

Fleas make that worry immediate. Halston’s Linda and Archie both acquire fleas after being taken to the park on the same day. Later, after being bitten again, Warhol checks Archie and finds that he has fleas, noting that some years are worse for them than others. The episode continues at home when Warhol steps in dog mess in the hall, cleans it up, and takes a shower; the fleas leave him feeling as if they might still be on him. His account follows the chain of a minor domestic nuisance—park, dog, household, anxious checking—without turning it into a larger medical crisis.

The city’s dog-waste pickup law enters the diary as another small adjustment to everyday care. Walking Archie and Amos, Warhol finds the requirement manageable: they go beside the trash cans, and he throws the waste away. Later, however, he says he is too distressed to bend down on the street to pick up after the dogs, so he sends them into the backyard instead. Together, these entries show compliance not as an abstract civic principle but as an action shaped by mood, physical effort, and where the dogs can go.

Other incidents are less settled. After Amos urinates on Warhol’s bed, Warhol records that he loses his temper with the dog. On a different day, he stays home because a dog is sick and watches television. These brief notes give the animals their own needs and disruptions, even when the diary’s attention is focused on Warhol’s response. A dog’s illness can keep him indoors; a household accident can strain the bond between pet and owner.

Recurrence and the diary’s form

The dogs’ meaning emerges from repetition rather than from a single extended account. They recur in walks, birthdays, visits, travel arrangements, illness, and the recurring work of keeping a home. One day’s dogs may be Archie and Amos; another entry concerns Reed’s Duke and Baron, Copley’s Tommy, or Halston’s Linda. The diary does not build these appearances into a continuous animal biography. Instead, each brief mention adds another circumstance to a larger portrait of life organized around small obligations and attachments.

That fragmentary pattern is also shaped by how the diary was made and prepared for publication. Before 1976, Pat Hackett kept a sketchy Factory log focused largely on visitors, events, and cash expenses. In fall 1976, she and Warhol began weekday morning phone calls that developed into a diary, with weekend activity recounted in a longer session on Monday. Hackett took notes during the calls and typed them soon afterward. The published volume was then distilled from 20,000 pages: whole days, weeks, portions of days, and many names were cut to give the text a more readable flow. Hackett also removed most direct references to herself, recasting the occasional retained reference in the third person. Dogs’ appearances therefore belong to a selected record, not an uninterrupted transcript; their recurring presence is especially legible because it survives across so many different kinds of day.

Within that record, dogs are neither merely decorative symbols nor a separate subject detached from human life. They are companions whose care takes time, whose illnesses affect plans, and whose habits expose differences among households. The diary’s attention moves quickly from a walk or a treat to a worry about fleas, then onward to visitors, work, or a night out. Yet the dogs keep returning, giving the changing routines of home a steady, concrete presence.