The Company We Keep

It's raining cats and dogs

Today's blog is offbeat, and that's how I like them. Am contemplating those companion animals that we call pets. For most of the Western world, dogs and cats are our pets of choice. There is a cultural aspect to this, because in China and Indonesia dogs and cats are food; crickets are pets. In western culture, we have many other pets – gerbils, parrots, and goldfish – but with a few exceptions, nothing that is as universally liked or accepted as dogs and cats. Also hardly any other such animals that we allow to roam freely in our houses and yards outside of a cage. It is interesting that our closest relatives in the animal kingdom – monkeys and apes, are not even close to pet status. Apes terrify humans, and must be kept in highly secure enclosures; monkeys (e.g., squirrel monkeys) can be kept as pets by a few brave souls, but are disruptive and difficult to house train.

Still other animals – raccoons, ferrets, and skunks, have some of the personality that we like but have kept some of their wild ways – they may run, burrow, attack, put out scents and do other things we can’t do indoors. And so – we are left with dogs and cats. What is interesting about dogs and cats is that they’re diminutive, cute versions of animals that would just as soon eat us for dinner (wolves and lions, that is). Nature dialed it way back, and gave us small, cute versions of the carnivores whose fierceness we so admire. Dogs discovered early on that they ate a lot better when they followed human encampments and scavenged the carrion brought down by humans. Cats likewise discovered that human grain repositories were a great place to catch mice. The less threatening (i.e., small and cute) renditions of these carnivores became our adored pets.

There seems to be a gender affiliation with cats and dogs. Dogs are trainable and used for hunting. Cats are graceful and aloof, hardly ever assigned to specific tasks other than maybe catching rodents in a barn. Look at Redbook or Martha Stewart Living – the pages will overflow with cat food ads. Look at male-oriented hobby magazines and you’re more likely to see ads for Alpo dog food. The gender association is very ingrained, even in our language. Women are said to have catfights or be catty. Witches were once thought to morph back and forth into cats. And a vulgar slang for the female anatomy is none other than a cat synonym. (Need I mention Pussy Galore from Goldfinger?) On the other hand, a bad real estate investment is a “dog” and an unkind woman is a “bitch”.

Could it be that maybe these two species represent some of our own character extremes? Women with flame red nail polish and cabaret eye makeup can indeed evoke a feline spirit. A group of men wearing sweats, guzzling beer and watching sports together calls to mind a canine pack. And so … maybe cats and dogs are more universal than we thought. The gender-species connection is intriguing – I’m dogged by the possibilities. How to cat-egorize these groups, I’m not so sure. All I can say is, the animal you hold in your lap is saying much more than “woof” or “meow”. The company we keep, whether it has two or four legs, might say something much more profound about us.