Animal planet

Dog days

My sister went to Whitstable yesterday and found this wonderful creature considering the view. She shared him with me and I'm sharing him with you. What a wonderful world.

PS I realise how inappropriate the title to this blog is, given the weather England has been having this summer, but I drank too much sangria last night and this really is all I can come up with. I welcome all suggestions.

PPS I typed England wrong and the spell check gave me Gangland.

Translation

The best way to confirm that translation isn't just shifting sense from one word to another but wrestling with, and reflecting, cultures is to take a look at packaging. We've just picked up two fabulous new Bialetti pans from our local supermarket - yes, we collect the points - and I was reading the instructions. They're what you'd expect. Prepare the cookware, cook over moderate heat, etc. There are seven of them and they're presented in seven languages: Italian, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. Looking at them it's clear that what we do with our cookware in all these countries is pretty much the same. With two exceptions, both of which appear in the English version.

The first, small but significant, is the instruction: DO NOT USE UNDER BROILER. This one isn't that hard to explain, although there may be British cookware users who don't know that grill and a broiler are the same thing. But it's interesting that this should be the only instruction in CAPITAL LETTERS, as though English-speaking readers needed that kind of emphasis to grasp an essential point.

But the really interesting difference comes at the end of the English text. It starts CAUTION (also in CAPS) and continues: For safety, please keep pet birds out of the kitchen. Birds' respiratory systems are sensitive to many kinds of household fumes, including the fumes from extremely overheated non-stick pans. This appears only in English. What can it mean? That allowing pet birds into a kitchen filled with excessively overheated non-stick pans is a practice so quintessentially English that the information needn't be given in any other language? Who else but a Brit would have parakeets among the pots and pans? Or is it that the budgie lobby in Britain and the States is so powerful that Bialetti is obliged to add this warning?

PS The sad-looking bird in the picture won the Wet Budgie Contest. I know no more.

PPS I can't not italicise cookware. I'm sorry.

Wakey wakey

My thanks to Katia and Susanna for this. I don't know who did it. If you do, let me know.

Knut goes nuts

There's an arrestingly titled article in today's Independent about Knut, the hand-reared polar bear cub in Berlin Zoo. It goes: Knut is a psychopath and will never mate, say experts. The article describes Knut's antics:

On a wet day last week Knut stood alone in his enclosure playing to his gallery of adoring visitors like an accomplished Rada graduate. Somebody had thrown him a six-inch-long plastic toy. Knut rolled it around in his mouth, threw it into a pool and dived after it, snatched it up with his paw and then rose up on to his hind legs before quickly flipping the object back into his mouth again. He did this for half an hour and his audience roared with approval. It was more circus than zoo.

When Knut was taken away from his mother, to save him from being eaten by her, his rescuers claimed that they were doing it for Knut. Now, with furry toys on sale depicting Knut in the days when he actually looked like a furry toy, rather than the hulking brown monster he's become (see photo), it's increasingly evident that Knut wasn't hand-reared for his own good, but for ours. From the moment of birth, the cub's socio-ecological niche depended on us.

Animal activists complained about this, but their gripe is not with whether Knut should have been deprived of his mother and a 'natural' death, but with the zoo itself. And, in one sense, they're absolutely right. Tony Paterson, the author of the article, makes a distinction between circus and zoo that seems altogether too fine for what actually happens. We all know that, in theory, zoos are the loci of scientific research and conservation. What we also know is that both circuses - those that remain - and zoos exist primarily to satisfy our natural curiosity about what animals are like - a curiosity that isn't sated by National Geographic and Discovery Channel. We want to get up close and see them unedited; we want to smell the dung and see them see us: we want to relate.

It's a shameful and tyrannical need in some ways, but it serves a human purpose. The truth is that all our animals, whether at home or in zoos, in farms or wildlife parks, even, arguably in reserves the size of the Serengeti, are there to meet our needs. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't love them, care for them, consider their needs; on the contrary, the more they're involved with us on a daily basis, the greater our responsibility becomes. But it's sentimentalism to say that we shouldn't interfere.

Of course we're responsible for Knut, but so would we have been responsible for his death. We can choose what to do with our power, and our responsibility, but we can't pretend we don't possess it. We can't return to some prelapsarian world in which we're all equal and what we think doesn't matter, because we have already made the choice, or had the choice made for us. Loving animals can be the most rewarding, and the hardest, thing we do. Let's not trivialise it by inventing some notion of nature, from which they can be 'divorced'.

For I will consider my cat.... (Tilly)

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

Christopher Smart

Good riddance to...

...Leona Helmsley, the hatchet-faced parasite who said that paying taxes was for the 'little people' and left her dog $12 million. Maybe they'll bag her ashes in one of those neat little sachets designed for pooches' poo.

Dogs

One of the hardest things about travelling is that you often have to leave your pets behind. This is particularly the case if the journey touches Britain, whose irrationally draconian anti-rabies measures make it impossible to take your dog: because, I admit it, I'm thinking dog here. Even more, I'm thinking Toffee.

We left Toffee in her own house (which we share), with Daniela and then Renata, people she knows and loves, so she was fine. We were the ones who suffered. Suffering takes many forms. Giuseppe phoned home every day for detailed bulletins on her health and general well being. Toffee licks the mouthpiece if she hears her name, which is unhygienic but endearing (to us), and this ritual was duly performed each afternoon.

I'm more grown up about it (I also think the phone thing might upset her at some deep level, the way time travel or full face transplants might upset me). I take photographs of other people’s dogs. Paris is a very good city indeed for this; it's hard to cross a street without seeing half a dozen small perfectly coiffured tykes being taken out by their owners. Jack Russell terriers are definitely this season's flavour; the animaleries along the Seine around Pont Neuf are full of them, with their prices pitilessly falling as they move out of puppyhood; although bulledogues (the French kind, hence the spelling) are hanging in by their oddly arranged teeth and look set to weather the canine fashion storm.

Then there are the much larger mixed-breed dogs that lope around with, and protect, the thousands of clochards in the city. The psychology's pretty basic. People like me, who go soft at the sight of most animals, tend to give more, telling ourselves that our money will be spent on biscuits. One guy who turned out to be from Manchester, strategically placed on his rucksack outside a place that sold the most delicious bread, told me he'd just bought something to stop his bitch - Sensy (because she’s sensitive) - going on heat. This information made me even more generous than I'd intended. He said that he could sleep more easily, knowing that Sensy was there beside him. We must have had similar circuits because I noticed Sensy and her life-partner half a dozen times, walking, sleeping outside the Monoprix on rue de Reynes. A man came out of the store and gave the Mancunian a bag with bread, cheese, tabouleh, screw-topped wine, two bottles of water and a sizeable bag of dog food. I wonder how often this happens, if it’s a frequent gesture or if I was lucky enough to see something exceptional. I hope the former.

Then, one afternoon, a big golden Labrador flopped across to us and put his front paws round my waist and his cold wet nose against my stomach. Begging for love, I thought, so I was half right. His owner, who rolled up seconds later with his hand out and a friendly smile, must have trained him to trawl for cash. But hey! everyone's happy. (Except for people who 'don't like dogs'.)

They don't even have to be real. I took these two photographs of toy dogs in the window of a shop that was closed for August. I had one not that different when I was small, with small wheels on each paw and a handle at the back like a trolley case; I don't know what happened to it.

Fat cat

I was looking down into the garden this afternoon when one of our three cats decided to relax. His name's Rocco, otherwise known as Tubs, Porco, Samsonite and the GFGO (the Great Fat Grey One). You can admire him here. And before you report me to any animal welfare organisations, maybe you can tell me how to put one cat on a diet and not the other two, both svelte and rangy by comparison, without separating them. Dogs are easy; they eat to order. Cats, as we know, are picky and approach eating much as Greeks seem to do, in a leisurely intermittent fashion, as though they had all the time in the world. As, indeed, they do. (Cats, that is.)

A strange few days

A strange few days, with the kind of strangeness that might have the germ of a story, though it’s too soon to tell. It started on Wednesday morning. I was going to Rome to teach for four hours. This involves catching a train, and I was waiting at the station reading a copy of Il Manifesto, something I rarely do these days, when the stationmaster announced that all trains were suspended for an undefined period. This is common practice in Italy: to tell you what, but not why. I’m convinced it’s part of the country’s enthralment to the church and the idea that knowledge is necessarily arcane and the prerogative of the few. I carried on reading my paper, enjoying the sun, enjoying the sense of irresponsibility that dependence on others or, even better, public infrastructures, provides. I phoned home, but not work; my mobile was almost flat; I wasn’t sure what I’d say. After more than an hour and a half, and no further announcements, I asked a man sweeping the platform if he knew what had happened. Yes, he said, a man has thrown himself under a train. How long will it take before the trains start running again? I asked. He shrugged. The police have to do their work, he said. I called home again with the last trace of current in my mobile. I think I’m coming home, I said. On my way through the station, I spoke the to the man behind the ticket window. He’s a tight-faced irascible type, so I said: I know you can’t give me any precise information but I wonder if, given your experience, you might have some idea when the trains might begin to start running in the direction of Rome? A question so full of implicit flattery and qualification received the answer it deserved. A shrug. A pout. Tempi giudiziari, he said finally. He might as well have said next week, next year. I caught the bus home.

After calling work and cancelling my lessons, I turned the computer on and found that my server was down. It isn’t the first time, it happens to us all, but I was in no mood to be patient. It takes very little to remind us how fragile the net of fields and currents and lines that support us really is, how easily it turns into a cage. A train line blocked, a mobile out of power, a computer that won’t talk with the rest of the world and therefore silences me as well. Ratlike and turning, vaguely guilty—should I have waited longer?—I tried to call the station but a recorded voice told me I wasn’t abilitato for the number. I tried another station further up the line. The same recorded voice. At this point I called my provider. Twenty-seven minutes of something that sounded like Scott Joplin, but wasn’t, and I found myself talking to a man whose patience ought to be a model to us all. It took us an hour and ten minutes to establish that the problem wasn’t at my end, but somewhere undefined (that word, the second time that day) on a line that doesn’t belong to my provider at all, but to Telecom. He promised it would take no more than five working days to fix. Five, I repeated. That was Wednesday, nobody works at the weekend so, with luck, I should be up next week. In the meantime, it’s dial-up. Tempi giudiziari.

What I didn’t notice during all this was that Toffee, our dog, was ill. She’s a timorous beast, as our vet puts it, and doesn’t like loud noises. When she hears one she scuttles to the corner by the fridge and sits there, tucked into the corner, until she feels it’s safe to move. But this time she seemed to have all the symptoms of a panic attack. Trembling, panting, eyes starting from her head, flopped onto the ground as though she didn’t have the strength to move. I picked her up and we drove her to the vet. It isn’t the first time she’s behaved like this, but normally it’s because she’s eaten some filth she’s found in the street, the way dogs do. Paola, our vet, examined her and ruled out food-poisoning, fever, infection; she didn’t know what it was. As doctors tend to do when there’s nothing organic wrong, she suggested antidepressants, which startled me, or filling the house with pheromones expelled from a small plug-in device, like an anti-mosquito gadget, to cheer her up, rather like soma in Brave New World. Is that available for people too? I asked. We decided to wait and see how she was. Later that day, she threw up. White viscous froth. Paola’s husband, also a vet, told us it might be a form of epilepsy.

Yesterday Toffee spent beneath our bed. When we moved it and I tried to pick her up, she bit my hand, just hard enough to let me know she was serious without breaking the skin. We spent much of the day on our hands and knees making coaxing noises, to no effect. It wasn’t until the evening that she came through to the kitchen and drank a bowl of water, but refused some rice and turkey, prepared on Paola’s recommendation.

I had a dream last night. I was watching Coronation Street. There was a room in it and a man I’d never seen before, talking to what appeared to be a dog. But the dog had a child’s head. I asked Jane, my sister, who these new characters were and she explained that they were a family that had lost their dog and put their child into the dog’s skin. That’s terrible, I said, but she didn’t seem perturbed. I looked again and saw that the child’s head was sticking out of the head of the dog skin, which resembled one of those all-in-one pyjamas children sometimes wear. The child was crying. I woke up and went into the kitchen, and found that Toffee had drunk another bowl of water and eaten the rice and turkey. She seems to be on the mend.

The man who threw himself beneath the train was 82 years old and he didn’t throw himself at all. When the train was announced, an Intercity, he climbed down and sat quite calmly on the track in front of all the other people waiting for trains (customers, as they’re now known). His wife and children were in Argentina, where he’d worked for most of his life. I don’t know why he came back to Italy, nor why he chose this moment and method to die, although the local newspaper says it’s known to be the most painless way to commit suicide, information I hope I’ll never need. The trains were suspended for more than three hours, so I wouldn’t have made it to work if I’d waited.

Fuck dolls for dogs

This may be too private to be shared, but my dog Toffee (actually, a sterilised bitch) expresses her displeasure by humping a cushion. Maybe I should get her one of these.

A vet friend said this behaviour was 'unusual'.

Cat with mug

The other post may have shown the mug in all its beauty, but the cat lost out.

Now it's looking at you.

Kid.

Loved ones

I was reading an LRB review of what appears to be an extremely interesting book by Alice Kuzniar, dealing with the dog-human relationship and called Melancholia's Dog, and this image, seen in the Guardian round-up of readers' pictures for 2006, came into my head.

This is the caption that accompanies it:

This is a special image for me of my dog Charlie, who passed away this August. I used the clippings from a trim he had during the summer heatwave to create the image, which reminds me of the mischief he regularly got into.

Kuzniar talks about mourning in her book, and refers to a photograph by Sally Mann showing a piece of skin taken from the corpse of her beloved greyhound, Eva, on which ribs and other bones from Eva have been lined up. The photograph is entitled 'What Remains, 2003'. She comments:

Although Sally Mann might be accused of uncovering and publicly displaying what is intensely personal, namely the remains of a loved one, by representing finitude and loss she militates against how grief over a pet is socially foreclosed.

If this is true of Sally Mann, it's even truer of Charlie's owner.

A spotted dog

This dog was seen in London by Jane, hanging around outside a shop (the dog, not Jane) and its stance has that mixture of curiosity and patience that I love so much in dogs, a sort of brinkmanship they do even better than children, who tend to cross thresholds the minute they're not being watched; so I wanted to share it.

It's also here to make up for the fact that I didn't get a decent photograph of any of the many dogs that contributed so much to yesterday's demonstration. Let this one be their representative.

Toffee

After all this wearisome political stuff, I thought it was time to post a picture of Toffee. I found her in a cardboard box marked Omaggio (Free) outside a pet food shop. She was just over three weeks old and should still have been with her mother. She fitted neatly into my hand. Now, five years later, she moves sofas to hide her bone.

She's called Toffee for obvious, chromatic reasons. My father, who was deaf, called her Coffee, for similar reasons, and she seemed perfectly happy with that.

She's bilingual. She disobeys commands in both languages.

Layered dog

I just clicked on the next blog. It's in Japanese (I think) and features fish, both fried and alive, and a rather beautiful dog. I couldn't resist this photograph (actually, of two beautiful dogs). I know I have my own dog and should be posting photographs of her (and I will, Toffee, I will) but, in the meantime, let's enjoy this.

FRIDGE POEM

This is a homage to Christopher Smart and to his "Cat Jeoffry/For he is the servant of the Living God".

Click on the image to embiggen.