And you thought the presidential race was a dog fight.
New York City’s canine mayoral election has been hijacked by crypto fanatics who are supporting a paw-like pup – with tensions rising so high that one owner pulled his Shih Tzu out of the finals.
The contest for honorary NYC dog mayor came to a halt over the weekend when owner Olivia Caputo pulled adorable Enzo the Shih Tzu out of the heated race, telling The Post the race became too negative — with crypto fans reportedly buying votes. Also tried.
Caputo said Monday that members of the crypto community are using his dog’s one-time Finals opponent, “Doggie Influencer” Bertram the Pomeranian, to market his BERT coin and also offer financial incentives in exchange for votes. .
Caputo described this maneuver as “election fraud”, saying, “It’s actually like having a lot of fun with it.”
Caputo added, “We signed up to be a part of something that is uplifting and fair and it’s all about dog lovers.” “I noticed that people don’t really care about Burt. They only care about increasing the value of the coin.”
Big Apple Pets owner Isabel Mann’s beloved pup, Ziggy, went up against Bertram during the first round when the crypto army first started barking around the polls.
“It quickly turned into something that was not in the spirit of the election at all,” Mann said. “The vote buying was especially crazy.”
Caputo said Enzo has also been the target of nasty comments online or in group chats, with the owner associated with most of the vitriol coming from cryptocurrency bros. There have been other nasty comments during the debate over adopting rescue dogs versus getting a dog from a breeder, she said.
Bertram’s owner Kathy Grayson has made it clear that she is not associated with any crypto proponents and said that she even asked them to stop interfering at one point.
He told The Post that crypto members around the world initially created the meme coin (a cryptocurrency named after a character) in the name of Bertram, a well-known dog influencer with hundreds of thousands of social media followers before the election.
But when they realized he was also in a joke mayor contest, they immediately banded together so he could take the top spot, said Grayson, who runs an art gallery. Some people have even made AI videos of Bertram doing random things.
“The most embarrassing thing they did was they posted a fundraiser or something on Twitter but you have to vote in a dog poll to enter the sweepstakes to get some coins or something,” he said.
“Can you imagine paying someone to vote in the Doug Mayor joke election,” he said, laughing.
Bertram now hopes to face Enzo’s replacement, the resilient Simon the Basset Cattle Dog, in the final on November 11. Simon initially lost to Enzo in the semi-finals.
Grayson said, “Everyone is so stressed and sad about the human election, this was supposed to be a little fun thing.” “It’s ridiculous that humans can’t have a good thing, they have to make it problematic.”
Both Caputo and Mann said election organizer Stephen Calabria has not done enough to quell the hostility surrounding the race and has not handled the crypto interference properly.
Both said they received mixed messages when they raised their concerns with them and claimed that they entered the competition under false pretenses.
Calabria, of Harlem, said he did not have time to speak Monday, but referred to a social media post he made Sunday addressing the controversy.
“We do not condone negativity towards anyone, whether dog or human, and do not support anyone trying to buy or pay for votes,” he said in the statement on Instagram.
“That said, we can’t control every conversation on the Internet, can’t control whether people in the global crypto marketplace organize for a candidate for dog mayor, and can’t control their vote for a given candidate. Cannot dictate each individual’s motivation to vote.”
calabria told summer post He started the fur-filled election to get rid of the political madness prevailing in the country and to raise awareness for pet adoption and voter registration.
Fifteen dogs from five boroughs entered the second annual event after East Village Basset Hound Sally Long Dog won the inaugural election in 2022.
Mann urged other potential dog owners to think twice before entering a future canine mayor election.
“I would really caution them to think carefully before they jump in and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s important to speak out,” she said.
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