Susan Orlean - On Animals

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

For John and Austin, and for Ivy and Buck and Leo and Cooper and Molly and Duffy and Laura and Beauty and Helen and Tweed and Mabel and Sparky and...

Animals first entered the imagination as messengers and promises.

John Berger, Why Look at Animals?

E ven before the cats, before the dogs, before the chickens, before the turkeys, before the ducks and the guinea fowl and the betta fish and the Black Angus cattle, I was always a little animalish. I dont just mean as a child, since all children love animals and come by being animalish quite naturally. I dont just mean as a young girlthat golden moment when I, like millions of young girls throughout human history, fell into an adolescent swoon over horses and, to a lesser degree, puppies. I mean that somehow or other, in whatever kind of life I happened to be leading, animals have always been my style. They have been a part of my life even when I didnt have any animals, and when I did have them, they always seemed to elbow their way onto center stage.

Has it been a simple matter of mathematics? That is, have there been more creatures in my orbit than in other peoples? Or do I merely notice them more and draw them a little closer than someone else might? There has certainly been an element of serendipity. I seem to have a higher-than-average tendency to find animals in my path. In 1986, when I was relocating to Manhattan, I resigned myself to what I assumed would be a life with very little animal adjacency except for the occasional dog or two. The day I moved into my new apartment, I unpacked a few boxes and then decided to go outside for some air. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, I collided with a man who was walking a pet rabbit on a silver leash. I spun to a stop, flabbergasted. The man didnt register my surprise; he was too busy trying to manage the rabbit, which was huge, coffee-colored, and ornery. Each time the man took a step, the rabbit braced against the leash, stretching it taut, and only then, with a cold look in its eye, would it give a flabby, half-hearted hop.

Please, Rover, please, the rabbits owner called out, in an aching, exasperated voice. Now, thats a good Rover. Come on, boy! Hop!

I grew up wanting animals desperately. When I was youngfour or five, or thereaboutswe had a cat, but she lived outside and came by the house only to collect her meals, a visit so brisk and purposeful that it made her seem less like our pet and more like a representative of some off-site cat charity who was dropping by to pick up contributions. Wanting a dog started early for me, but my mother was afraid of dogs, and she threatened to stand on a chair squealing and flapping her skirt if we ever brought one home. Consequently, we remained dogless, and I suffered. At regular intervals, I offeredor, more precisely, beggedto walk the neighbors dogs, but we lived in the suburbs, and most dogs had roomy yards and werent in need of walking. On Sundays, I read the pet section in the classifieds as if it were a love letter, circling ads and showing them to my parents. My father would say, Ask your mother. My mother would shudder and say, What would I do with a dog?

At last, though, my brother and sister and I wore her down. We devised a marketing strategy. We had come across an ad for Black & White Scotch that featured a pair of adorable dogsan ink-black Scotty, handsome and sharp-looking, and a West Highland white terrier with a merry face and the cleanest, brightest fur in the world. Since my mothers dread of dogs included fear that a dog would spread a haze of permanent dirtiness throughout our house, we thought the dazzle of the Westies whiteness might do the trick. And it did. We ended up with a Westie puppy in a matter of days.

I loved our Westie, but to be honest, I had set my heart on a German shepherd, since Id imprinted early on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, and like most of the world I wanted a dog just like the star of the show. But I was thrilled to have a dog of any sort. Around that same time, I also got a mouse as a gift from a classmate, a boy with a permanently runny nose and pockets overflowing with twigs and rocks and leaves. How I convinced my mother to allow me to keep the gift mouse, Ill never know. The little creature was a beautiful butterscotch color, with soft white feet and ruby-red eyes. I named her Sparky and pretended that she was some kind of championship show mouse, and I made a bunch of fake ribbons and trophies for her and I told people she had won them at mouse shows.

You might think that with my champion mouse and my clean white Westie, I would have been satisfied, but I still felt I had animal work to do; I didnt have a pony yet, for instance. I began campaigning for one, unsuccessfully. In the meantime, one afternoon, I took Sparky over to my classmates house so she could have a playdate with his mouse. The next thing I knew, Sparky built a nest in her cage and populated it with five baby mice, which were small enough to waltz right out of the cage without even brushing the bars. When my mother saw one of Sparkys babies skittering across the kitchen floor and disappearing under the dishwasher, she really did jump on a chair squealing and flapping her skirt. I had crossed the line. There would be no more animals added to my collection while I was still living at home.

As soon as I got to college, I decided I wanted a boyfriend and a dog. I knew having a dog while in college was crazy. I had a wild schedule and a rented apartment, and no idea of where I would be after I graduatedlife conditions that dont bode well for pet ownership. But now that I was away from home and away from our family dog, I missed having a pet. Plus, it seemed like all of my friends in Ann Arbor had dogs. As for the kind of dog I wanted, my tastes had changed. Rather than a German shepherd, I wanted an Irish setter. I didnt know any Irish setters personally, but I used to moon over another liquor adI think it was for Irish whiskeyfeaturing a man and woman in Kelly-green trench coats, walking a pair of leggy red-haired dogs. I was a not-so-leggy red-haired person, and the dogs, with their elegant, anxious faces and hair that matched mine, seemed like the perfect companions for me.

I started perusing the classifieds again. Sometimes there were Irish setter puppies for sale, but they cost too much for me to even consider. Then, one September day, I put on a pair of jeans I hadnt worn since Id come back from Europe, where Id gone on a summer school program. The pocket felt stiff. I reached in and pulled out a wad of paper and unfolded it. The wad was $300 worth of travelers checks that Id forgotten I had. By all rights I should have spent the money on books and rent and tuition, but finding it like that, by accident, made it feel like a windfallas if an unseen and benevolent force had just tossed three hundred gold coins into my upturned palm. I took it as a sign and called one of the Irish setter breeders in the newspaper and bought a four-month-old puppy that I named Molly.