Animal Happiness: Moving Exploration of Animals and Their Emotions - From Cats and Dogs to Orangutans and Tortoises by Vicki Hearne

Author:Vicki Hearne [Hearne, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2007-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

He goes on to cite emblems of female power of the sort that most feminists in my ken despise as examples of male chauvinistic sexual pathologies—the scorpion whose ritual ends in the disappearance of the male, a species of fish that “has reduced the male to the status of a mere accessory.” The piece ends with a request that the women in the audience “please keep their seats until the men have left the auditorium. They need, God knows, a head start.” How we read this depends on a lot of other beliefs, of course, just as the reader’s interpretation of my comparison of women to dogs depends on a lot of other beliefs. I suppose that my fondness for such comparisons leaves me open to the charge of the sexist version of “Uncle Tomism,” but I am a dog trainer and I think that complaint leaves the complainer open to the charge of speciesism. So there. Boo!

Muggs, like Mamie Thurber, could and would get to you whether or not you were reading him as a sweet doggie who only wanted to please. Thurber’s women get to his men, and to the reader, as Thurber himself does, whether or not we think it’s safe to pat him or them on the head and go all weak with sentiment. So I think I would like to end by revealing that when Muggs died, there was written “in indelible pencil” over his grave a single line, “Cave Canem.” This line is usually translated into English as “Beware of the dog,” and certain authorities tell me that its meaning may be ambiguous, that it may carry the connotation “Take care of the dog” or “Be careful with the dog.” It quite pleases me to believe this.

The last line of Thurber’s story of Muggs tells us that his heroine, Mame Thurber, was also “quite pleased with the simple, classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph.”

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