There is a very simple solution to this: using a regular if-statement in place of the in-line

if dogCount == 0 {
    print("No Dogs?!")
} else {
    print("I have ^[\(dogCount) dog](inflect: true)")

This code performs normally, at the cost of not being so concise.

Many use cases for labels for buttons, menus, and pickers benefit from in-line if-statements, which this solution unfortunately does not do a big favor in solving.