In Praise of Our Pets

On occasion, my wife likes to call me “Rain Man” because I have a pretty good memory for minutia — old phone numbers, birthdays and dates in my life and in history, most of which are trivial and irrelevant. I can tell you the birthday of my best friend in second grade — “He doesn’t even remember your name anymore,” my wife suggests — but I usually can’t tell you what I ate for breakfast.

One date that has never escaped my memory is May 29, 1981. That was the day my childhood dog passed away, right in front of me. No matter how much time lapses, I never forget that date and think about her for a few moments, usually with a big smile.

Pets have an amazing capacity for giving us unconditional love that we often take for granted. In our hectic lives, they sometimes seem like just another mouth to feed or someone else to take care of. Another nudnik. Of course, the truth of the matter is that the old cliché is quite accurate, that it’s they who rescue us and not the other way around.

Take, for instance, my cat, Baby. No, we didn’t name her; that was a cruel joke foisted upon us by her former “owner.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told someone my cat’s name and they’ve responded, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” as if they’re the first to invoke that line from “Dirty Dancing.”

When we adopted Baby several years ago from the Baltimore Humane Society, my wife and I really didn’t want a cat. We didn’t know from cats; we’d both grown up with dogs. But our daughter really wanted a pet, and we’d heard cats were fairly easy to maintain. (At least you didn’t have to walk them outside and clean up after them, we figured.)

In retrospect, those first few nights with Baby in our house were pretty ludicrous. Even though she’s a docile feline, we were quite terrified of her. Images of the cat taking a bite out of our faces while sleeping were an ever-present concern. It also took her a while to get accustomed to our peculiar ways and the house in general.

Of course, the kids’ promises to take care of the cat fell by the wayside quite quickly and we were left with the heavy lifting, if you want to call it that. The upshot is that even though we technically saved Baby, she’s given us a lot more in this courtship. She’s brought a spark to our lives. Fairly soon, we became smitten with our new roommate. Perhaps pathetically so.

Unfortunately, despite all of the studies showing their intrinsic value to our health and well-being, pets are often the source of ridicule and dismissal in our culture. I still remember after my dog passed away, a “friend” told me he “hated” her and was thrilled she was dead. (My response, of course, can’t be reprinted in a family publication.) I also recall a couple of former co-workers snickering whenever passing by a colleague’s desk bearing a formal family portrait of her and her husband with their three golden retrievers.

This month’s cover story is a collection of articles revealing the pivotal roles that pets play in our lives and world. Perhaps the English language needs a better word than pets. In actuality, they are our family members, roommates, confidants, soulmates and dearest of friends. They speak volumes without uttering a word, yet contribute so much to our existences without really even trying.

Without them, we’d be, well, stuck with each other.