Monday Musing: Pets and Persons

There are two kinds of people: there are the kooky kind who will spend $4,000 on dialysis for their cat whose kidneys are failing (substitute some significant expenditure of resources for individuals in differing financial circumstances—you know what I mean), even if only to extend its life briefly; and then there are the kind who will make fun of the former (or even regard them with moral disapproval—that money could have been used for better purposes, etcetera). Recent events surprised me by showing that I belong in the first category. And now that I know I belong there, I am going to attempt an explanation or at least hazard a conjecture, a speculation, a plain guess, at what puts some people there.

But first let me tell what happened: my wife Margit and our cat Freddy (about whom I have written before here) left New York City to take up residence in the northern Italian alps at the beginning of September. My wife is from that lovely German-speaking area known as the South Tyrol and is now teaching English there, and I will be joining her quite soon for an indefinite duration.

Freddy is a young cat with a unique personality of great beauty, and we went to some lengths to try and make the journey as stress-free for her as possible, buying her an expensive soft mesh carrier and a "cat ticket" so she could travel in the aircraft cabin with Margit rather than be scared alone in the cargo hold. It is a long trip even for humans, including a 4-hour drive at the end.

While Freddy did okay on the trip itself, she stopped eating soon after arriving there. After a day or so of this, Margit noticed that she regurgitated a piece of a thick string toy that she usually likes to just play with. Thinking she may have swallowed more of it from the stress of being in a new environment (cats are very territorial and do not like moving houses) she took her to a vet, who X-rayed Freddy and thought that she saw something blocking her intestines. Surgery was scheduled for the next morning.

Upon cutting her open, the vet found nothing inside. At this point, the diagnosis was changed to something called Feline Adipose Liver, which is something that cats can get by not eating from stress. If caught early enough, most cats can be made to survive this condition by being force fed by mouth as well as by injection for a few days or sometimes weeks. This regimen was started immediately, causing great difficulties for Margit who had started her own stress-inducing new job the day after arriving in Italy, and who kept having to take time off to attend to the cat and her many appointments at the vet's. Still, we talked about it, and I told her that even if she has to quit her job she should do so to try and save Freddy's life, and we also agreed that whatever material resources we have would be expended for any reasonable chance of making Freddy feel better. But she got worse.

Her eyes glazed over, she could not move with ease and hardly did, her breathing became labored and loud, and it became clear that she was dying. At this point, Margit was told that the vet she had been seeing was not the most reliable, and was known for operating unnecessarily on animals just to charge the large fees that such surgeries entail. Trust me, you cannot imagine my rage at this thought.

Now, after much research, Freddy was taken to a different vet, who criticized the first one for not having performed a standard series of blood tests to rule out common feline ailments, and when these tests were finally administered, the news was shocking: Freddy's blood came back positive for Feline Infectious Peritonitis, an incurable viral disease (related to the human SARS virus) which quickly kills cats in a most painful way, causing them to lose their eyesight, and their organs to fail rapidly one by one. She already had many of the symptoms of the disease, especially the labored breathing which is typical of FIP. She was in pain and the vet recommended that she be brought in the next day at noon (a week ago Saturday) to be killed by lethal injection, sparing her (and, of course, Margit) a slightly more drawn out death of terrible suffering and agony. I spoke to Margit on Friday night and tried as best as I could to steel her for this duty and then canceled all posting at 3QD for that Saturday in a private act of mourning. Since the day I started 3QD more than three years ago, we had never had a day without any posts until then. (Did you notice?) And then I felt dejected and disconsolate, even desperate.

Since that time, I have thought a bit about my own reactions which, as I mentioned above, surprised and even embarrassed me. It is obvious that different people feel various degrees of affection for their pets. This can depend upon the type of pet (very few people, I imagine, are capable of feeling very strongly about a goldfish, or a snake, or even a hamster), how much time you have spent with the pet, the nature of your interaction with the pet (how much you play with the pet, whether the pet sleeps with you, how much time you are alone interacting with the pet, whether it is the only pet in the home), and so on. And, of course, it depends upon the type of person you are, and how much empathy you have for other creatures. Now I am not a cat-lover in general. Other people's cats do not evoke much affection from me and just bore me, and I am mostly indifferent to many animals. (I am also a meat eater, so clearly the slaughter of animals for my consumption has never been much of an ethical problem for me.) So why this reaction, which I might have laughed at in someone else?

Here's what I think: while you can have various degrees of affection for pets, there is a quantum leap that you can make (and this is a Rubicon that cannot be uncrossed): if in your own psychological representation of your pet, you habitually grant them personhood, then there is no choice but to treat them as you would a person because different parts of your mind which specialize in generating the emotions which allow you to interact with (and love) other humans come into play, and these are irresistible impulses. You might as well try to not care about your children. I believe that some animals, like cats and dogs, have through their long histories of living in people's homes as pets (more than 10,000 years in the case of cats), been naturally selected to encourage human empathy. Imagine what a survival advantage it is to the household cat that its young behave in such ways and make such tiny, vulnerable (to the human ear) sounds that it takes a particularly monstrous human to harm a kitten. Similarly, they have, I think "learned" (even if they do not have the equivalent emotion--after all, just as I don't know what it is like to be a bat, I don't know what it is like to be a cat either) to express emotions that move us and encourage us to conceive of them as persons. I can recognize fine distinctions, I imagine, in Freddy. She appears very much an adolescent (which she is): pouty, moody, angry, playful, lazy, affectionate, awkwardly sexy, etc., in turn. The fact that I work from my apartment and therefore have spent most of my waking days around Freddy since she was even younger doesn't hurt that I have developed a very fine-grained sense of her moods and feelings. And it doesn't hurt that Freddy has a bizarrely human and intelligent personality either. She likes to constantly imitate me in a million ways, lying down in a very unnatural (for a cat) position on her back next to me in bed, with her head on the pillow next to mine. Or look at this photograph in which she is copying my pose almost exactly (I am lounging on the other corner of the same sofa with my spread-eagled legs on a table) which shocked Margit so much that she captured Freddy with a camera:

Freddy is an indoor cat and I felt bad that she does not have as much stimulation as she should, so I bought some DVDs made for cats to watch on a High Definition TV. These show birds, insects, mice, etc. Freddy loves to watch, and does so with attentiveness and excitement. Don't believe it? Check her out:

The objection that one should not waste ones money on things like cats is spurious and basically silly. I am not objecting to someone spending $20,000 on a cruise to the Antarctic, or a set of bigger breasts, or whatever. Is their travel or vacation or how their breasts look so important that they couldn't spend the money saving childrens' lives in Africa with it instead? This is crazy and would make it immoral for any human to live a life better than ANY other human on Earth. I'm not stealing the money, after all, I can spend it any way I like! Some might say that since cats have no sense of their future (hopes and dreams for it, for example) and they have no sense of their own mortality, it is not worth it to try and save their lives. Try telling that to the parent of a one-year old child, who also doesn't have these things! Oh, I'll stop there with my defensiveness. Ich kann nicht anders.

So what happened to Freddy? As Friday night wore on I became more agitated. I read on wikipedia that 19 out of 20 cats who have FIP will die. And then in the middle of the night here in New York, and only a couple of hours before Freddy's appointment with eternal sleep, I called Margit and we agreed that there was no reason to rush this. I said that she is such an unusual cat in so many ways, maybe she will be that twentieth cat! We convinced ourselves that she would be. And we decided to let her suffer and die at home and to suffer along with her, rather than kill her.

With Margit's constant and attentive care, a day later she started eating again, and for the last four or five days, Freddy has been COMPLETELY normal, running up and down the stairs, playing with her ball, eating with gusto, sleeping well, breathing completely normally, and making friends with other humans. And I have my hopes.

This post is dedicated to Ruchira Paul.

All my previous Monday Musings can be seen here.

Have a good week!

Comments

[Lexcen]

Cats do respond to love and affection and they give as much as they get. Lovely story.

[Jesse]

I wish Freddy a speedy recovery Abbas. I was never a cat person either and then on a strange whim bought a cat recovering from valley fever. One absolutely does grant them the status of personhood; less for the cuddles and warmth, those are both predictable, but the surprises, the weird gestures, fixations and meows,the things that make you realise that you're dealing with a unique creature.

As for the morality of seeking expensive medical care, are you really going to tell a valued member of your family: sorry four legs?

Keep us posted

[Uma]

I'm so glad she has recovered. Good luck!

[Azra Raza]

Hi Abbasi,
I was actually very moved by reading your account of Freddy’s illness. I confess that I am one of the “other” humans who have never felt this sort of deep affection for an animal, even during the days when you had 19 different pets at home in Karachi that included various types of birds, cats, turtles, frogs, mice and geese. And now I know why. Perhaps in some sort of a self-defense, I never granted any of them the personhood you talk about: it’s bad enough trying to protect oneself from feeling too deeply about other humans for fear of being hurt. (Itna aasan naheen laho rona, dil main taaqat jigar main haal kahan?) The way I have seen you interact with Freddy and the amazing manner in which she responds to you, I can see how a very unique inter-species bond has been forged here. And it is very beautiful. And the fact that Freddy is better is beautiful. And thanks for continuing to teach us new things all the time. Aps.

[August]

What a nightmare! You don't have to analyse and think so much about it, but it's what people tend to do in the grief process to deal with the complexity and intensity of feelings that arise -- just feel, which is your connection to Freddy, who dwells in a place of feelings. May you both live well and in peace together.

[Tasnim]

Kudos to Margit, for taking care of a very sick cat, feeding her and nursing her back to health while starting her new job, settling down in a new place. I am surprised you did not fly over with your emotions. It is a great relief to see Freddie get better, more so because with her you got better from your bad moods. Good writing. At least I can understand the intensity of your emotions, otherwise I am not much thrilled by cats and dogs. Good Luck for full recovery.

[Jonathan]

Abbas,

A wonderful and intelligent post. I went through something similar this summer with my dog Izzy, who suffered tremendously after a heat stroke (caused my inattentiveness during a car ride from the Adirondacks). She seemed for a day or two like she was dieing. It is agonizing, and one does EVERYTHING one can. Anyway, like Freddy, Izzy's recovery now seems complete, and she's happy and playful as before.

There is nothing to be ashamed about granting personhood to animals, who tend by my lights to be more interesting than most humans. And you're right to think of this in terms of pets particularly, with all the complicated evolutionary dynamics involved.

[Michael Blim]

Abbas: Twice blessed! A pal first, and now a recovering pal! Auguri to the three of you!

BTW, beautiful rendition of a story so many, including me, have faced.

Mike Blim

[PaperMaven]

Thank you. I love a cat story with a happy ending.

I have an elderly cat who became hyperthyroid. within 24 hours of his surgery, he had seizures. The fix for that was calcium gluconate injections every 6 hours for about 10 days, then tapering off as the oral medication raised his levels. The money spent put a strain on my household, but I did it knowing it was more about ME than about Billy Doux. He was sick enough to be past caring; I wasn't ready to lose my friend. Now, having been through this fear, sleeplessness and worry, I may be able to let him move on when the time comes. Until then, I'll be grateful for the time we bought.

Would I do it again, for another pet? Absolutely.

[Barbara N.]

Dear Abbas and Margit,
Peter and I were distressed to hear of valiant Freddy's illness and near-demise, so it is such excellent news to hear that she has rallied through Margit's loving care, your mutual determination and her own redoubtable personality. Well done all three! And thanks for this compelling post. Having seen and known Freddy when you both first adopted her, it is amazing to see these photos of her looking so sleek, confident and nonchalant, so obviously happy, cared for and cared about (even if that's dubious grammar). I remember you saying almost plaintively: "But Margit, I want *that* cat!"
Well, lucky Freddy... and lucky you two, possessing those qualities in yourselves and having the bond and inner resources to act in accordance with your strong feelings despite the physical distance of your present circumstances.
But we know first-hand your generosity!
We miss you, and New York City.
Perhaps we will see you in Italy. Love, B & P.

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Oh no! I met Freddy the first time I met you, as it happens, and she is indeed, a most unusual cat. I hope she beats the odds and recovers completely.

[Elatia Harris]

Abbas, I'm so happy for you and Margit -- and Freddy too, who may well feel like the cat that got the cream.

But if an animal can have no anticipation of future life (not so sure about that theory since animal behaviorists may not be animal lovers), then perhaps they do not appreciate the gravity of past danger, either. Maybe they just move on to the next DVD. Du kannst nicht anders, indeed.

Many thanks for letting everybody know that this story ended the right way. It's wonderful news.

[Ruchira Paul]

Atta Girl, Freddy! Thanks for hanging in there. Lucky you and lucky Abbas and Margit.

Abbas, no need for an apology or excuse for loving an animal like your own child. Yes, there are those who deride our peculiar tendency toward "anthropomorphism" and dedication to our pets. But rest assured, there are plenty of us out there and we benefit from this attribute as much as our pets do.

[Vicki Baker]

I used to think I was one of those "other" people too. That was before I paid a $160 vet bill for a mouse.

[maniza]

best wishes.

[Jim Leighton]

Abbas,

A few years ago, Anna and I spent an enormous sum of money on an elective operation to rid one of our two cats of an intestinal blockage that would have killed her (she had, ironically enough, eaten the ear off of a rubber cat-shaped cat brush whose application she had little affection for). Neither of us have ever regretted it for a second (granted we had the financial resources to make this a real choice), and neither of us has ever felt "kooky," nor have we ever for one second stopped to care whether anyone else thought we were kooky. It always struck me that the most important aspect of the experience was that both of us instantly knew that we would spend the money. There was simply no discussion and instead there was instantaneous and profound unspoken agreement. Indeed, I daresay we would both agree that it's some of the best money we have ever spent.

For a long time I've been wondering where the strong feelings of affection and even love for these animals that you so wonderfully describe comes from. I'm fairly certain that the involuntary and insuppressible urge to parenthood is expressing itself through this mechanism, but that's not the whole story. I, for one, am convinced that animals have a far more complex emotional life than we humans generally give them credit for.

Best wishes to you and Margit, and especially Freddy for a speedy and full recovery!

[joseph duemer]

My wife & I have dogs & this story resonates deeply. I have had dogs long enough that I have last some to illness or old age. I try to accept that the way I accept the illness, aging, or death of my friends. Absolutely, my dogs are persons. But through the long history of domestication & the individual histories of adoption, humans have "health care proxies" for their animals. How one exercises that proxy is a delicate moral matter that different people will handle in different ways. Is there such a thing as moral skill? You & Margit handled your responsibilities with moral skill. Even if the end of the story had been sad rather than happy, you would have that consolation.

[alia]

i agree with achi completely. since the death of apa's cat kiki (who lived with me when apa left for turkey in 1988), i have been completely and utterly unable to even think about ever having another pet. i think we've even talked about this - about how perhaps i need to get a tortoise.

[Samson vanOverwater]

What very caring and aware people you all seem to be! A pleasure to absorb these thoughts and emotions. And . . . healing.

[Dianna]

I found the link for this on onegoodmove, and the timing couldn't have been better. Very sadly, my husband and I had to have our much loved, twelve-year-old Dobie put to sleep last week. She was an extraordinary canine "kid" in every sense and her life with us was a true joy. Reading your story and the comments about it make me very happy to be part of this "kooky" community of empathetic people. The best of luck with Freddy.

[Bill]

Dort steh' ich auch, Abbas. Pets are family, I am not in the least embarrassed about it, and do not think you should be either.

(Obanecdote: my wife and I spent several thousand dollars we didn't really have trying to save a beloved cat's life. We did not succeed, but we do not regret a penny of it and will do it again without hesitation.)

I am very happy to hear of Freddy's recovery and wish you all many more years of her continued good health.

[ordinarygirl]

I understand completely and I'm so glad that Freddy is doing better!

Last year my cat Junior (named Mikey Junior after his father who was my cat too) got sick very quickly. He was breathing very heavily and retching. We took in to an emergency clinic. They asked to keep him overnight for observation.

They called us very late that evening to tell us that his red blood cell count was very low and they had a list of things that could be wrong, but very likely it was fatal. We gave permission to do every test except drilling into his bone marrow. If everything else was ruled out then it was unlikely that he would survive the surgery because he wasn't producing enough red blood cells to support his organs. And if it was his bone marrow, there wasn't anything they could do other than confirm what he was dying from.

We went down to see him after the tests. He was in an oxygen cage. He cried and cried and I couldn't comfort him. I didn't want him to be in pain and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't ask him what he wanted. I didn't just feel pain because he was part of my family, but because I was responsible and I wanted to do the right thing for him.

I wanted to take him home because he always hated the vet's office and I thought the stress was making him worse. But I was afraid he'd suffocate before we could get him home. In the end I asked to have him euthanized. I don't know if I made the right decision. For months I wondered if I should have tried to take him home anyway. But I just didn't want him to be in pain anymore and it seemed like what he wanted.

Would I have spent thousands of dollars if I had thought he would have wanted it? You bet!

I was all set to hear a sad story with Freddy and I'm so happy you didn't have to make that choice. And I'm happy you shared his story.

[Abbas Raza]

Thanks a MILLION to everyone for such supportive and encouraging messages. I (and Margit) are deeply touched by all the responses and stories of other animals here.

Freddy, of course, is blissfully unaware of all the people who know about her (she has apparently become quite a celebrity in the South Tyrol too as people in the small town were amazed at the drama created by my wife with the constant vet visits and a whole household running around in several cars attending to the cat for days!) but that is as it should be. I am the vain one, after all, who believes my cat to be the best cat ever born!

Thanks VERY MUCH to all, again. I'll give an update at some point... :-)

Oh, and Aps, in the list of my childhood pets you forgot the chickens I hatched myself using a shoe box and the warmth of the refrigerator compressor: Meeran Sahab and Yajooj and Majooj. There was also the parrot that walked out of the house never to return after you yelled at him for chewing up your shoes (thanks a lot!) and removing a few buttons neatly from one of your jackets. And, of course, my beloved pigeons! There were also rabbits and parakeets and finches and fish and hamsters and the dull sparrows I would catch and then dye with bright colors (with food coloring) and release them, so I could recognize them as they flew around in the neighborhood. They must have looked mighty funny to their friends for a while. Maybe I even caused some avian divorces!

[Akbi]

Wow--this post sure generated a lot of responses very quickly. It reminds me of a journalism class I took once in which the teacher said, "When papers have no story to run, they always turn to a pet story, because you can never go wrong with them! People write the most letters to the editor about that genre of stories, and they just LOVE to hear anything about pets!" It is really sweet and lovely to see all these comments from people who have gone to great lengths to keep their pets alive. I've always thought it hasty when vets say, "You're cat has cancer. Euthanasia is your best option." I've done that twice, with two pets that I think of CONSTANTLY (and even since the last one was put down, it's been several years). I get physically ill and have to suppress the urge to burst into tears at the mention of either of these pets. The deaths of both were the only times I've been so unaware of and unprepared for the immense devastation that followed (even as I am a vegetarian and involved in animal rights for the last 14 years, and I do believe animals have complex emotional and mental lives). I mean I really physically and emotionally lost it both times! Watching them suffer was hard, but after they were put down, first a panic gripped me: I'll never, ever be able to see Heather/Sylvester again! And then, both times, I buckled over and almost fell to the ground with the onslaught of deep, aching sadness and the uncontrollable tears that came next. I'm getting all choked up now, in fact! For those who have never had pets, or never connected with them, this may sound like histrionics, but I'm sure those of you who have had/connected with your pets can understand. The love you get from a pet, is so uncomplicated and so pure. And they don't seem to me to have malice, so there are not those messy conflicting feelings you might have for the more "complex" relationships we have. It truly is like a baby dying. Although, I remember reading somewhere that cats and dogs think of us as their parents, in a way (but don't compete with us for resources, as they would with their biological parents in the wild, thus uncomplicating their feelings toward us and making possible on their end the "uncomplicated and pure" relationship I mentioned above), but they also think of themselves as our parents, and do seem to behave like both at often (my current pet cat ALWAYS knows if I'm sad or ill and will lie next to me, making sure we have some sort of tactile interaction, such as lying with her abdomen flush against mine, or licking my hand gently). So a pet dying is like having your parent and your child die at the same time.

[petlover]

You bought DVDs for a cat? thats ridiculous! I think that this type of "humanization" of pets is widespread because of over-abundance of resources (incidentally, it is most common in western world and US in particular). If you were barely making it financially you would have no thoughts of even buying cat food for it.

[Ruchira Paul]

But Petlover, he is NOT barely making it, don't you understand? He is sharing with his pet because he is making enough to share. If you have nothing to spare, you may not be able to buy human food, let alone pet food. So, what's your point?

BTW, I have seen homeless persons share their meager meals with stray animals. Yes, it is a matter of one's resources as to how much one can do for a pet or any animal. How little one does however, is a matter of attitude.

[razib]

today has been a difficult day for me cat-related. i cried after reading your story. and i wish your family the best.

[Neda]

I'm so glad the story ended well. I think you're right, once you love animals, there is no need to compete their value with people. It is distinct and has a value of its own.

I crossed my personal Rubicon a year ago and had to go vegan. It was an easier transition than I thought it would be. I just couldn't see animals the same way again.

Big Hugs to you, Margit and of course... Freddy!

[Will]

OMG what a relief Freddy was okay!! Well done, you saved him!

Great post, thank you.

[Zo]

I have seen cats make the most extraordinary, swift recoveries. Perhaps in part because they don't know their dire diagnosis—what freedom that must be—and, too, because they are made that way.

Wonderful story, best of luck.