From everything you have been reading lately — O.K., overhearing on the sidewalk, because technically speaking, science has yet to engineer the literate basset hound — you think you like this Bill de Blasio creature. A year ago, when he dropped that groundhog at the Staten Island Zoo, an event soon followed by the groundhog’s death, you weren’t so sure. But hey, correlation is not causation (as you were forced to keep reminding that irritating Lhasa apso, Noam Chomsky, always with his conspiracy theories, in Prospect Park).

Last month the de Blasio administration quietly named a point person, Jeff Dupee, to handle issues of animal well-being in the city. This is the first time, to anyone’s knowledge, that a position like this has been held in New York. Even though Mr. Dupee’s portfolio will extend beyond matters dealing with pets, you’re going to call him the pets czar because the title sounds catchy, and you’re not going to hold it against him that in his own home he has cats — two tuxedos, Kacey and Orca. Orca, Mr. Dupee said, was given the name “because she looks like a whale.”

Are the motives behind this appointment free from any taint of impurity? Do they stem simply from a St. Francis of Assisi-like nature in the mayor? You’re not so sure. During the mayoral campaign, Mr. de Blasio benefited greatly from the efforts made by animal-rights supporters under the umbrella of a group called NYClass to defeat Christine Quinn, whose views on the horse-carriage trade the group’s members fiercely opposed. When Mr. de Blasio took office, NYClass, along with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, delivered a paper to City Hall called “New York City Animal Welfare Priorities 2014.” The first item on the agenda was the establishment of an office to oversee policy related to the care of domestic and wild animals.

Actually, when you think about it, you’re willing to put the politics aside. All along you have been saying, “A tale of two cities? Tell me about it. It’s a tale of two kennels.” Just the other day you encountered a West Highland terrier in Brooklyn Heights who was getting through the winter with a hunter green and pink tartan jacket his owner’s mother had purchased on a recent trip to Scotland. Please, you know mixed-breeds who would be thrilled with acrylic from Rockaway Boulevard.