Animals feed, clothe, save, serve, and fascinate us. The mysterious intersections of humanity and kingdom animalia are complex, varied, and usually one sided in favor of humanity. Every human being is affected by animals for better or for worse (but more often for better) on one level or another, and in return we exalt and exploit them to varying degrees.
I started thinking about my own fascination with, and mythic affinity towards animals in 2009, after I went to the National Zoo around the Fourth of July. I had just finished reading The Medici Giraffe: And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power by Marina Belozerskaya, which closes with a section about the giant pandas at said zoo. The idea that these admittedly cute, finicky bears too lazy to have sex but once a year have become part of the complex web of diplomacy between two world superpowers says something about the millions of people who have anthropomorphized the pandas into “little people in furry suits.” But what exactly? I admit, I spent a lot of time at the panda paddock, but I could not imagine these creatures negotiating a fair trade agreement, or a nuclear nonproliferation accord.
They just kind of sat there and ate bamboo. Lots and lots of bamboo.
Still, as Belozerskaya points out, they have become geopolitical bargaining chips as well as a symbol for people who care about animal conservation.
I liked the pandas, but I tend to gravitate towards those animals that more closely resemble ones I may have at home, and when those animals are active, the experience is unforgettable. Just think about how much time your cat sleeps, and you’ll see where I’m coming from.
In my visits to many zoos over the years, I’ve actually seen big cats awake. It’s true. I’ve seen a snow leopard nudge up against its keeper and purr like a kitten, I’ve been growled at by a hungry black panther as it paced in its enclosure waiting to be fed; and, at the National Zoo I saw a cheetah dance around its habitat, giving us lucky enough to be there just then a taste of its elegant strength and grace.
I’ve also seen gray wolves step out of the misty “hills” of their zoo environment and into full view, something, I was told by the surprised and smiling keeper, almost never happened in daylight hours. I’ve been inches away from a Mexican Wolf, separated only by a piece of glass of undetermined tensile strength, which really works for me, since I consider myself sort of a “dog whisperer” anyway. I’ve always felt that the distance between a wild wolf and a domestic dog is thinner than plate glass, so while I may not have been charmed by the gastronomical exploits of the giant pandas, I have chosen to see the dog in the wolf instead of the wolf in the dog.
I don’t buy lazy bears as savvy diplomats, but I certainly believe that dogs can be best friends, and that cats can celebrate birthdays.
My first dog, Sam, came to me from a feral pack when I was about seven years old. I gave him the promise of a regular meal, and he in return helped me through the rubble of my family’s collapse. That’s a story so common it’s become too typically American: A Boy and His Dog, and it almost always ends in tears.
Even people cool on cats have to recognize the peculiarity of this: once on my mother's birthday, my cat, Samantha jumped up on the counter and dropped a dead lizard in front of her, as if to say, “Here you go lady. Happy Birthday. Thanks for the Tender Vittles.”
Like Lorenzo de Medici, Josephine Bonaparte, and William Randolph Hearst, I’ve let my varied experiences with creatures great and small define part of who I am and what my legacy will be. Belozerskaya skillfully tells how Lorenzo wanted his Giraffe to validate his status as a Tuscan Prince, how Josephine wanted her menagerie at Malmaison to stand as a legacy beyond her barren marriage, and how Hearst obsessively assembled a vast array of exotic animals in the California hills as a way to compensate for the fractional sense of himself created by an overbearing mother and a distant father.
My animals have given my life color and made me feel loved.
But the larger question of why we as a species integrate and anthropomorphize animals of all sorts – regardless of the reasons – is something neither I nor Belozerskaya have adequately addressed.
And, on the whole, I’m not sure we can. Is the need to live with other species biologically driven or divine? Did I choose Sam or did he choose me? Did either of us really have a choice at all?
Thirty years later, I understand that, logically, it was the promise of a regular meal that lured Sam, and all dogs down through the ages, into domesticity, but the emotional need to believe that there’s more to it than that is just as real for me now as it was when I was seven. Sam did choose life with me over life with the pack, and he did it for one reason: me.
Samantha really was giving my mom a birthday present.
And Giant Pandas will definitely save the world.
I started thinking about my own fascination with, and mythic affinity towards animals in 2009, after I went to the National Zoo around the Fourth of July. I had just finished reading The Medici Giraffe: And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power by Marina Belozerskaya, which closes with a section about the giant pandas at said zoo. The idea that these admittedly cute, finicky bears too lazy to have sex but once a year have become part of the complex web of diplomacy between two world superpowers says something about the millions of people who have anthropomorphized the pandas into “little people in furry suits.” But what exactly? I admit, I spent a lot of time at the panda paddock, but I could not imagine these creatures negotiating a fair trade agreement, or a nuclear nonproliferation accord.
They just kind of sat there and ate bamboo. Lots and lots of bamboo.
Still, as Belozerskaya points out, they have become geopolitical bargaining chips as well as a symbol for people who care about animal conservation.
I liked the pandas, but I tend to gravitate towards those animals that more closely resemble ones I may have at home, and when those animals are active, the experience is unforgettable. Just think about how much time your cat sleeps, and you’ll see where I’m coming from.
In my visits to many zoos over the years, I’ve actually seen big cats awake. It’s true. I’ve seen a snow leopard nudge up against its keeper and purr like a kitten, I’ve been growled at by a hungry black panther as it paced in its enclosure waiting to be fed; and, at the National Zoo I saw a cheetah dance around its habitat, giving us lucky enough to be there just then a taste of its elegant strength and grace.
I’ve also seen gray wolves step out of the misty “hills” of their zoo environment and into full view, something, I was told by the surprised and smiling keeper, almost never happened in daylight hours. I’ve been inches away from a Mexican Wolf, separated only by a piece of glass of undetermined tensile strength, which really works for me, since I consider myself sort of a “dog whisperer” anyway. I’ve always felt that the distance between a wild wolf and a domestic dog is thinner than plate glass, so while I may not have been charmed by the gastronomical exploits of the giant pandas, I have chosen to see the dog in the wolf instead of the wolf in the dog.
I don’t buy lazy bears as savvy diplomats, but I certainly believe that dogs can be best friends, and that cats can celebrate birthdays.
My first dog, Sam, came to me from a feral pack when I was about seven years old. I gave him the promise of a regular meal, and he in return helped me through the rubble of my family’s collapse. That’s a story so common it’s become too typically American: A Boy and His Dog, and it almost always ends in tears.
Even people cool on cats have to recognize the peculiarity of this: once on my mother's birthday, my cat, Samantha jumped up on the counter and dropped a dead lizard in front of her, as if to say, “Here you go lady. Happy Birthday. Thanks for the Tender Vittles.”
Like Lorenzo de Medici, Josephine Bonaparte, and William Randolph Hearst, I’ve let my varied experiences with creatures great and small define part of who I am and what my legacy will be. Belozerskaya skillfully tells how Lorenzo wanted his Giraffe to validate his status as a Tuscan Prince, how Josephine wanted her menagerie at Malmaison to stand as a legacy beyond her barren marriage, and how Hearst obsessively assembled a vast array of exotic animals in the California hills as a way to compensate for the fractional sense of himself created by an overbearing mother and a distant father.
My animals have given my life color and made me feel loved.
But the larger question of why we as a species integrate and anthropomorphize animals of all sorts – regardless of the reasons – is something neither I nor Belozerskaya have adequately addressed.
And, on the whole, I’m not sure we can. Is the need to live with other species biologically driven or divine? Did I choose Sam or did he choose me? Did either of us really have a choice at all?
Thirty years later, I understand that, logically, it was the promise of a regular meal that lured Sam, and all dogs down through the ages, into domesticity, but the emotional need to believe that there’s more to it than that is just as real for me now as it was when I was seven. Sam did choose life with me over life with the pack, and he did it for one reason: me.
Samantha really was giving my mom a birthday present.
And Giant Pandas will definitely save the world.
Header art by T. Guzzio.
CONNECT WITH TOM:
In addition to editing Prodigal's Chair, Tom is a teacher, father, husband, writer, artist, futbol fan and slightly maladjusted optimist. He lives in Beverly, Massachusetts with his wife and their cocker spaniel, Honey (who approves this message). You can connect with him on Twitter @t_guzzio, or via email at tom@prodigalschair.com.
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