BROOKLYN, NY — A four-foot fiddle leaf fig identified only as Gerald has, per a statement released Wednesday through a spokesperson, formally declined to characterize the events of Tuesday afternoon — during which a household dachshund named Pepper urinated directly into its base for approximately eleven seconds — as consensual.
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Gerald, who lives in a curated corner of a two-bedroom Bushwick apartment near a west-facing window, said the incident was “the third such event this month” and that at no point had he been asked, notified, or given any opportunity to opt out.
“I did not agree to this,” Gerald said, through the spokesperson. “I have never agreed to this. I have, in fact, taken active steps to communicate — through the language available to me, which is primarily wilting — that I do not wish for this to continue. Those steps have been ignored. I am now, essentially, being urinated on as a matter of routine. And I would like the record to reflect that I did not, at any point, sign off on it.”
Gerald’s owner, 34-year-old graphic designer Cassandra Whitlock, was reportedly “mortified” when informed of the plant’s position.
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“I did not know he felt that way,” Whitlock said. “I mean, I guess he can’t tell me. But I didn’t — I didn’t put it together. Pepper does it, and I clean it up, and I water him extra, and I move on. I didn’t think about it from his side. Now I’m thinking about it from his side. And it’s a lot.”
She paused.
“He’s been through so much,” she added quietly.
Gerald has, per Whitlock’s own records, been urinated on at least eleven times since arriving in the apartment in September 2023. The urinations, per pattern analysis, tend to occur during periods when Whitlock is out of the apartment for extended stretches — most commonly Wednesdays, when she attends a pottery class from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Pepper, per surveillance footage Whitlock reviewed for the first time Wednesday morning, has established what she described as “a very specific ritual” involving three preliminary circles around the fiddle leaf’s ceramic pot before committing to the act.
“He scouts it,” Whitlock said. “He circles it. He considers it. And then he decides. And Gerald is just — Gerald is just standing there. Doing his best. Trying to photosynthesize.”
Gerald, when this was read to him, requested that the term consent be added to the record.
“There is no version of these events that constitutes consent,” the spokesperson said, reading a prepared statement. “Gerald is a plant. He cannot move. He cannot object verbally. He cannot leave the room. He is, by nature and by circumstance, in a fundamentally non-consensual relationship with any dog that decides to urinate on him. This is a structural issue. It has to be addressed structurally. Watering me more after the fact is not addressing it. Watering me more after the fact is not the same.“
Whitlock, when informed of the statement, sat down slowly on her couch.
“He’s right,” she said. “He’s completely right. I keep, like, over-watering him afterward as if that fixes it. As if the water is going to somehow balance out what happened. But it doesn’t. It’s a different thing. The dog urinating on him is one event, and me pouring extra Brita water on him is another event, and I have been treating them as if they cancel each other out.”
She looked at the plant.
“I’m sorry, Gerald,” she said.
Gerald, per the spokesperson, appreciated the apology but noted that it did not, in itself, resolve the underlying issue.
Pepper, when reached for comment through his own separately retained spokesperson, expressed regret but declined to admit fault.
“Pepper is a dog,” his spokesperson said. “Pepper does not know what he is doing constitutes a violation. Pepper knows that the plant is there. Pepper knows that the plant is a nice height. Pepper knows that the plant is, per Pepper’s evaluation, dog-scented in a familiar way. Pepper is not, at any point in this process, considering the plant’s autonomy. This is not because Pepper is malicious. This is because Pepper is a dachshund.”
The spokesperson paused.
“That does not, however, absolve Pepper,” he added.
The other members of the household, when contacted for comment, were split. Whitlock’s roommate, 32-year-old Marisela Kwon, said she had been aware of the pattern for months and had, in her words, “not known how to bring it up.”
“I’ve come home and seen it,” Kwon said. “I’ve seen the look on the plant. And I’ve thought, someone should say something. But I didn’t want to make it weird. It’s Cassandra’s plant. It’s Cassandra’s dog. It felt like an intrusion. I regret my silence. I want to be on record as regretting my silence.”
She paused.
“I should have spoken up sooner,” she added. “That’s on me.”
A second fiddle leaf fig in the apartment, a smaller plant identified as Jerome, has not been urinated on. Jerome, per Whitlock, is positioned on a windowsill six feet off the ground and is, in her words, “structurally inaccessible to Pepper.” Jerome, when reached through a separate spokesperson, declined to comment on Gerald’s situation directly but did say he was “grateful for his positioning” and “aware, always, that this could have been him.”
Jerome added, per the spokesperson, that he stood in solidarity with Gerald.
Whitlock, meanwhile, has announced that she is moving Gerald to a small enclosed alcove near the front door, elevated on a plant stand, effective immediately.
“I should have done this a long time ago,” she said. “I heard him. I hear him now. He has been telling me, in the only language he has, that he needed this. I’m sorry it took eleven incidents.”
Gerald, per the spokesperson, accepted the arrangement.
He was, per the spokesperson, “cautiously optimistic.”
At press time, Pepper had already, per Whitlock’s home security camera, circled the new plant stand three times, considered it, and, upon determining that Gerald was now approximately two feet higher than his own reach, walked slowly to the kitchen, where he had begun scouting a nearby pothos.
The pothos, sources confirmed, was next.
The pothos, at press time, had not yet been informed.