The creature is the same, the category is the frame, the frame is the game.
Is your cat a pet or a colleague?
Our categories, often arbitrary, shape our relationships.
Snickers
My parents’ cat died yesterday. She was a comfort animal, treated like a member of the family — albeit one who would literally bite the hand that feeds her. Upon receiving scritches, Snickers would drool, then grow overwhelmed by the pleasure and bite you. Her teeth were quite sharp, prompting the end of the scritching and Snickers’ confusion.
Dubbed The Belle of Amherst, Snickers hermited upstairs, leaving her room only once or twice per year. A working cat? She hadn’t caught a mouse in her life. Snickers would meow so my mother would lift her up to the food bowl on the windowsill. My mother laughed about Snickers forgetting the location of her food. I laughed because Snickers had learned to take the elevator instead of the stairs.
Snickers was a family member. We will miss her.
Smidgen
After ending a relationship in 2018, a best-friend-sized hole throbbed in my heart. Since dog is man’s best friend, I considered adopting.
Unsure for how long I would want a dog, I reasoned: I would delightfully care for a dog for the next few years. After that period, I wasn’t so sure.
Most people in this circumstance wouldn’t adopt a dog, at least in cultures where dog is family-member. I understand that dogs feel emotional attachments. It does seem cruel to adopt and abandon.
However:
- “Abandoning” is meaningfully different from what I planned to do (I wouldn’t simply leave it on the street)
- In that world, one more dog sits at a shelter and I wallow without a dog.
Many shelters are over-crowded, especially with chihuahuas, and often kill the animals they can’t care for. Even if somebody took a dog for a year, then returned it and the dog was immediately put to death, didn’t that dog get an extra year of life? By caring for a dog, even temporarily, don’t you improve the dog-shelter ecosystem? It’s hard to say that some amount of dog separation pain overrides the value of a happy year of a dog’s life.
I concluded the “dog-as-commitment” perspective didn’t fit my values, so I adopted a dog with the plan to rehome her if my preference changed. When I called the shelter to put Smidgen on hold, the receptionist laughed, saying she had been at the shelter for months: no one would swoop in to steal her from me.
Smidgen and I traveled together for around three years. More than anything in the world, she loved lap-sitting. She’d sit on my lap while I drove across the country. She’d sit on my lap while I read a book. Sometimes we’d go to dog parks so she could sit on my lap and watch the other dogs.
Six months into our relationship, I mentioned the uncertainty I had about keeping her. Consistently, people responded with comments like, “Well, you’ve made a commitment.”
Where does this social pressure — that a dog is a family member — come from? It might be the social shaming of abandoning or abusing dogs (which is categorically different from re-homing them). It might be the strong vocality of people who grow incredibly attached to their dogs.
In my uncertainty, I only found one write-up about a family that adopted a dog, had it for six months, and decided it wasn’t for them. The write-up lamented the absence of shared experiences like this.
Partner
Partner grew up surrounded by animals: cows, chickens, sheep, ducks, geese, guinea pigs, parakeets, a rabbit, and dogs.
Two weeks ago, our general contractor brought over some eggs and mentioned he has a sick chicken. His wife has spent about $2,000 trying to revive this chicken. Partner noted afterwards that she had newly realized she didn’t grow up with pets: she grew up with farm animals. One cow was named T-Bone after its future. When raccoons raided their coop, the family shrugged and replaced the chickens. (As Partner puts it, “Chickens are like 3 for $10.”)
I don’t think there’s clear superiority to the pet perspective over the farm animal relationship. The relationship seems more driven by one’s background and emotional experiences than logic.
I’m reminded of the Supreme Court case National Pork Producers Council v. Ross. In oral arguments, the Humane Society argued for the ethics of pigs in kinder conditions. Pork producers rebutted with the ethics of affordable pork. A plurality of the Supreme Court ruled the ethics “incommensurable” – impossible for courts to compare.
Mother
My mother grew up with a large extended family, all in their forties or older when she was born. By the nature of aging, they began to pass away when my mother was quite young.
My mother sees each pet as a family member.
I grew up without an extended family. My four-person nuclear family has always been healthy. I don’t have that particular pain that causes me to strongly desire more family. (But I did adopt Smidgen from a best-friend-sized hole.)
When my time with Smidgen had neared its end, I asked my mother: “If I rehomed her, would you want her?” My mother said yes.
She relates to what she sees as a family member. I relate to what I see as a dog.
What’s it like to be a pet?
Smidgen and Snickers shared the same bed for about four years. Snickers hissed whenever Smidgen got too close. I wonder whether they considered each other family.
Will Smidgen be sad that Snickers is gone?
Reply to tell me: what’s your relationship with the animals in your life? And if you’ve ever rehomed a dog: did anyone in your circle understand?
Julian Wise 