The Great American Animal Farm

"Din-dins, everyone!" First, imported sardines, then chicken croquettes in white wine sauce, with a few Yummies to follow. That's for Samantha. For Buddy, there are flamed medallion of beef and vitamin-enriched doughnuts. Carol's getting fruit treats.

Oh, for Pa and Ma and you kids, it's spaghetti again. No meatballs. Inflation, remember?

With infinite variation but only slight exaggeration, some such table d'hote is presented daily in countless American households. Samantha the cat, Buddy the beagle, Carol the canary, and myriad other furred, finned, scaly and feathered creatures are not only members of the great extended U.S. family; they are more equal than most. The U.S. pet set gets not only more nutritious meals but also better medical care and vastly more affection than the great majority of the world's people.

Wag and Purr. Pets are the surrogate children-- and husbands and wives-- of Western society, returning, for kibbles and kisses, companionship and devotion, or at least a cool tolerance accepted as love. Like pharaohs and czars and Caesars, Americans surround themselves with absurdly exalted animals. In a disjointed society and a disquieting world, these anthropomorphized adoptees can be counted on to wag and purr and warble, warming human hearts and hearths until they pass expensively on to await us in the Great Pet Sheraton Upstairs.

The U.S. today is undergoing what can only be described as an animalthusian explosion. There are enough pet species in this country alone--some 5,000--so that just one pair from every category would require, come the deluge, a Noah's ark the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

The some 100 million dogs and cats in the U.S. reproduce at the rate of 3,000 an hour, v. the 415 human babies born each 60 minutes. An estimated 60% of the 70 million American households own pets--including 350 million fish, 22 million birds and 8 million horses--and nearly 30% of these families have more than one. No less a journal than the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has urgently advocated zero population growth for pets. Otherwise, in dark moments one can envision a vast, real-life re-enactment of George Orwell's Animal Farm, with all the captive creatures, from apes to zebras, dispossessing their patrons and decreeing: "Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy; whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend."

In the view of alarmists, the revolution may already have begun. Pet alligators have fled their habitats and begun to multiply in city sewers. South American piranhas have checked out of private aquariums to infest Southern waterways. Pet snakes of many deadly varieties escape and terrorize whole neighborhoods. Argentine monk parakeets are fleeing the cage and filching the fruit from Midwestern orchards. Land snails slither out of home aquariums to gnaw the stucco outside. A fugitive kangaroo has hopped 250 miles through Illinois and zapped several cops. In every city in America, abandoned dogs rampage in wild packs through vacant lots and nocturnal streets. In New York City alone, 38,000 people annually require medical attention for dogbites. In rural areas, wild dogs cause at least $5 million in cattle losses each year.

Enormous Implications. Americans spend $2.5 billion a year on commercially prepared pet food alone to feed their pets--more than six times as much as they spend on baby food, and more than enough to nourish the one-third of the world's population that goes hungry. But Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz recently drew cries of outrage from pet lovers when he suggested--facetiously--that Americans could help feed those hungry people "by reducing our cat and dog population by 50%." For each dollar spent on pet food, Americans lavish at least as much for pet products and services, including not only veterinary care and grooming but also such accessories and services as clothing, jewelry, dentures, wristwatches, contact lenses, perfume, health insurance, headstones, professional pet walkers and sitters, and a whole animal kingdom of books and how-to manuals such as Enjoy Your Snake. Then there is the $100 million in public money it costs each year for pounds to exterminate 14 million unwanted pets.

Many of the animals held in thrall are simply incompetible with the human family. Canis familiaris and Felis domestica have lived with man since the dawn of time and adapted to his ways. Not so the wild creatures so much in vogue today. Incredible as it sounds, 10,000 Americans own big cats, from lions to leopards. A number of families own elephants. One of the most dangerous species of pet is the chimpanzee, which at maturity weighs 200 lbs. and is a better candidate for pro football than for the parlor; it has also been known to infect humans with hepatitis.

U.S. dealers import 100,000 wild monkeys a year. One dealer admits that 75% of all imported wild animals die within a year. Dr. Alan Beck, director of the New York City health department's bureau of animal affairs, reasons that "pets are supposed to be companions. Wild animals can never be. I would especially outlaw the sale of all primates. The ecological, cruelty and disease implications are enormous."

Mutts and Mehitabels. Any A to Z of the American pet culture reads like a bestiary gone berserk. Among the species to be found in the Great U.S. Animal Farm: aardvarks, anteaters, baboons, bats, beetles, bison, boa constrictors, bobcats and budgeriagars; camels, catfish, chameleons, cheetahs, chimps, chipmunks, cougars, coyotes, crabs, crickets and crows; dogfish, donkeys, ducks, eelpout, efts, falcons, flamingos, foxes, frogs, gerbils, giraffes, goats, goldfish, gorillas, guinea pigs, hamsters, hermit crabs, hummingbirds, iguanas, impalas, jackals, jaguars, kangaroos, kinkajous, llamas, leopards, lions, margays, mice, mongooses, newts, ocelots, octopuses, opahs, orangutans, ostriches, otters, owls, panthers, parakeets, peacocks, peccaries, pelicans, pigeons, pumas, pythons, quail, rabbits, raccoons, rats, reindeer, rhinos, scorpions, seagulls, seals, skunks, snails, springbok, squirrels, tapirs, tarantulas, tejus, tigers, turtles, two-toed sloths, umbrella birds, veeries, vipers, vultures, wallabies, waltzing mice, wolves, wombats, xiphosurans, yaks, yellowhammers and zebras.

The American Kennel Club recognizes 120 separate pedigree breeds of dog, while their infinite permutations would baffle a computer; 28 varieties of purebred cats are recognized by the Cat Fanciers' Association and, again, there are millions of mehitabels for every noble Persian and Siamese.

Great men, of course, have always exalted animals. One pharaoh maintained a staff of 12,000 to attend to his sacred cats and dogs. Ovid wrote poems to his dog, T.S. Eliot to his cats. Caligula crowned his horse, and Winston Churchill confided to a favorite poodle secrets "I'd tell no man." President Kennedy used to swim in the nude with his Welsh spaniel. Another spaniel named Checkers helped prolong the political career of Richard Nixon. When Lyndon Johnson pulled up one of his beagles by the ears one day, he received more protest mail that month from outraged pet lovers than he got from parents of men who were dying in Viet Nam.

Lovable Smell. Today pet ownership has become almost as sacred a democratic right as if it had been written into the Constitution. Indeed, a California lawyer sued the city of Berkeley for impounding a dog without due process. "Pity the poor animals," wrote George Bernard Shaw. "They bear more than their natural burden of human love." The burden is not too onerous.

Pet-food manufacturers, who spend some $165 million a year to advertise their wares, scramble to produce ever more salivating goodies, aimed, of course, not at the consumer but its owner, as evidenced by such slogans as "Lets you feed your dog like a member of the family," and "He'll love the taste; you'll love the smell; you'll both love it." (The advertising is indeed effective; a considerable amount of dog food in the U.S. is consumed by impecunious humans attracted by the relatively low price.) For misanthropic mutts, one maker has brought out People Crackers, which are shaped like mailmen and cops, with the slogan: "Give your dog a little somebody between meals." Butchers dealing only in choice cuts for pets reported no decrease in sales during the 1973 meat boycott; many furnish gourmet meals for their customers--some of whom allow their pet to take a place at the dinner table.

For home chefs, Ellen Graham's The Growling Gourmet (Simon & Schuster) gives recipes for such specialties as Model Marisa Berenson's Shih Tzu Stew (a Shih Tzu is a small Asian canine), Actress Joey Heatherton's Finian Bake (a Gaelic pudding for Yorkshires) and Artist Andy Warhol's menu of quarter-pounders for his dachshund. Preparing these dishes probably benefits the chef more than the pet; veterinarians agree that dry, kibbled food meets all the nutritional requirements of dogs and cats (though boa constrictors and cheetahs may require meatier sustenance).

After meals, the pooch may have his teeth brushed with Happy Breath toothpaste or a new beef-flavored variety, then go out to be fitted for a hounds-tooth jacket, a gold bracelet, black lace panties, a lame evening gown, top hat and tails, Halloween outfit, caps, booties and pajamas. He may have his coat dyed to make him look younger, or work out on a jog-a-dog machine (at $575) to keep him in shape, or have his portrait painted in oils. There are clip-on diapers for parakeets, hairpieces and false eyelashes for poodles, snoods to keep bassets' ears out of the sterling-silver feeding bowl, bikinis, ski suits and sunglasses for vacationing types, earrings, mascara and nail polish in a dozen colors. On his birthday a pet can expect to receive blue or pink cards and summon his pals--on his own phone--for a birthday cake of liver with powdered-milk icing.

For cats, there are Prince Valiant suede tents, "powder-room screens," fiber-glass igloos and a Ko-Z Cat Cottage with pile carpeting, a sun deck, catnip bar and built-in mouse hole. For animals left behind by vacationing owners, pet motels and inns vie to offer such features as wall-to-wall AstroTurf, brass beds, Snoopy linen, piped-in music, color TV, bathrooms, beauty parlors, air conditioning, thrice-daily cookie breaks, and meals cooked to clients' specifications (including kosher diets). If the pet travels with his owners, there are guides listing only hotels and motels that welcome him.

Manhattan-based Pet Astrologers Genevieve and Christopher Cerf produce elaborate "caniscopes" for such superdogs as Dustin Hoffman's Subway and President Ford's Liberty ("As she grows older Liberty will really pour herself into her sexual relationships"). Los Angeles, which not unexpectedly is the epicenter of animalmorphism, boasts a special limousine service for pets, which is patronized by, among others, Redd Foxx's Saint Bernard and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.'s llama. There is even a pet boutique that will have a shaggy dog's excess fur made into a sweater in Scotland. Of all the cemeteries across the country that vie for the Loved One's remains, probably none celebrate death so elaborately or expensively as the Los Angeles Pet Cemetery at Calabasas, which could have been the scene of Evelyn Waugh's novel; there dogs that belonged to Lionel Barrymore and Rudolph Valentino are buried, and religious rites are routinely performed at the funeral. One expensive plot is occupied by a goldfish, another by a quail.

James Shanahan, vice president of Americana Hotels, feeds his nine-year-old dachshund, Clancy, filet of chicken topped off with a nip of Courvoisier. At night, before retiring to his own king-size bed, Clancy, in one of his 16 sweaters, trots over to the neighborhood pub, installs himself on a barstool and downs several vodka-and-creme de menthe nightcaps, considerately served up in a bowl. According to doting Owner Shanahan, Clancy is also "a great vocalizer and sings Happy Birthday to You all the way through." His principal charm, says Shanahan, is that "he has a broken tail and walks exactly like Jim Cagney."

Meals and Medicare. Also genuinely devoted to their pets are such people as Glen Crank, a blue-collar worker in Hammond, Ind., whose dependents include a poodle, a pointer, a Saint Bernard (caskless), a cat, a ferret and a cougar named Rajah; to defray Rajah's $1,000 acquisition costs, say the Cranks, they had to "eat beans for months." (They have since been forced by neighborhood pressure to give Rajah to a local zoo.) The potentates of petdom may well be the 65 dogs whose meals and Medicare are assured by the will of Quaker State Oil Heiress Eleanor Ritchey; she left them $14 million and a 180-acre pad in Deerfield Park, Fla. The dogs may dwindle, but their canine capital does not: the dogs are now worth $123,278 apiece.

Gerald Durrell, the English zoologist and author (Menagerie Manor), is aghast at such man-dog relationships. Says he, "I can't stand these fubsy people who tell you, 'Oh, my dog talks.' This is anthropomorphism gone mad. I can't stand this business of people keeping Pekingese on silk cushions and feeding them creme of chicken."

What is the reason for this slavish adulation of animals?

Pets, notably dogs, cats and some birds, can, if treated sensibly, be pleasant, undemanding, entertaining consorts. During wars, insurrections and depressions, particularly, pet ownership seems to proliferate. Aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution claimed in some cases that they had lived because their dogs had repelled or mollified would-be assassins. Even in today's recession-inflation battered economy, when the care and feeding of pets would seem an exorbitant load on the family budget, there are more and more pet owners in the U.S.--deriving, perhaps, psychological sustenance from what Kipling called the dog's "love unflinching that cannot lie." Spoiled and pampered as it may be, the pet population still yields redoubtable characters and friends of man: the cat who stays up until the wee hours until his late-working owner arrives home; the dog that stands watch by a sick child or guards an empty apartment; Mimi the miniature poodle in Danbury, Conn., who in 1972 saved eight persons' lives, barking and licking at their faces when a late-night fire broke out in their home.

James Thurber was particularly eloquent in his praise of these sterling qualities. In Thurber's Dogs, he recalled his poodle: "She could take part in your gaiety and your sorrow; she trembled to your uncertainties and lifted her head at your assurances." Big animals are particularly in demand as protectors.

Among city dwellers, the popularity of Doberman pinschers, Saint Bernards and German shepherds--even wildcats --has risen in proportion to the incidence of muggings and burglaries.

In general, though, as Desmond Morris wrote in The Naked Ape, "The popularity of an animal is directly correlated with the number of anthropomorphic features it possesses." This is recognized by even the youngest children; they are generally the most levelheaded owners and associates of pets, whom they see as fraternal, adventurous and fallible allies, incapable (unlike parents) of scolding or punishing. As Freud noted in Totem and Taboo, children "feel themselves more akin to animals than to their elders." Old people, particularly those living alone, often depend on pets for the companionship and warmth denied them by human society. Some behaviorists argue that the mentally disturbed can be helped by animals -"seeing-heart dogs," in one psychologist's phrase--to relate to reality.

Most often, however, humans attempt to endow their pets with human qualities, deluding themselves and demeaning animals. Many married couples who are unwilling or unable to have children adopt animals instead, embarking on a quasi-parental relationship without the responsibilities and hazards involved in child rearing. "If your romance is going to the dogs," suggests a pet-food-industry publication called Pet Pourri, "you might try a dog to save it." In fact, there are countless cases in which a couple's rivalry for a pet's affection--or occasionally even its sexual favors--ends in divorce, and often a custody battle for the animal.

Status Symbols. "It is truly amazing," wrote Psychiatrist Karl Menninger, "to what extent popular taste permits libidinous attachments to animals without clear recognition of their essentially sexual nature" (though, admittedly, it is hard to envision even a subliminal sexual relationship between humans and such pets as alligators, bats, cobras, hedgehogs, octopuses, tarantulas and vultures). Then, too, many pets, particularly the big and exotic species, are less objects of affection than status symbols, notably for the emotionally insecure or sexually maladjusted. In all too many cases, as W.C. Fields observed, "what is a dog, anyway? Simply an antidote for an inferiority complex." (Fields, of course, loathed most humans as well.)

There are countless tales, mostly mythical, of dogs risking their lives to defend their owners or else, when the owner dies, expiring of a broken heart. In fact, dogs are loving creatures and will do almost anything for a providing owner. It was, after all, Cerberus who guarded the gates of Hades. Mastiffs brought back from England by Julius Caesar became canine mercenaries, as famed in their day as the K-9 Corps of World War II. There are the tales, too, of faithful cats that travel thousands of miles to find their vanished owner, though thousands more prefer to abandon their homes. Cats are by nature haughty creatures, less dependent than dogs on caresses and canned entrees.

The late Milan Greer, who founded Manhattan's Fabulous Felines, one of the country's biggest dealers in purebred cats, demonstrated greater knowledge of feline personality than human psychology when he claimed that he sold few cats to blacks or Orthodox Jews, because they were "rejected minorities who don't want to be rejected by a cat."

There may even be some parallel between the phenomenal growth of "petishism"--a term coined by Author Kathleen Szasz in a 1969 book of that title--and the increasing problems of the automobile industry. Certainly, the wizards of Detroit have never come up with a car that will wag its taillights or purr when nourished at the gas station. Many of the qualities once associated by psychologists with possession of a car--prestige, sexual potency, dominance--are not unlike those linked to pet ownership.

In recent years, the proliferation of pets also has been accompanied by a rising discontent with the disproportionate expense and nuisance that animals--or rather their owners--wreak on urban society. Dogs in cities can be man's worst friend. For all the private millions lavished on them, Canis urbanus remains a great burden on the public purse. Each day across the nation, dogs deposit an estimated 4 million tons of feces and 42 million quarts of urine on city streets and parks. Canine excrement is not only costly to clean up and revolting to wade through; it is also a health hazard. More than 100 human infections, from diphtheria to tuberculosis, can be picked up by animals and passed on to their owners. Dog defecation is also rich in toxocara (roundworm), which can cause blindness in children who grub in it. Many diseases are also transmitted by birds, turtles and other imported pets.

Neurotics. Should dogs even be allowed to live in cities? The controversy in New York City has sorely vexed politicians as the opposing ban-Bowser and save-our-pets factions battle for their support. One city official made so bold as to propose that dogs be restricted to alternate sides of the street on different days. "When it comes to the question of dog feces," said another official, with unwitting humor, "I consider myself a centrist." New York briefly tried installing dog toilets in parks and streets, but gave up when their intended patrons declined to cooperate.

To the outsider visiting Hong Kong or even New York's Chinatown, the scarcity of dogs and the cleanliness of sidewalks is immediately apparent. That is because, in most Oriental societies, dogs are regarded as predators rather than pets--or as a loping entree. In fact, the choice of "aromatic meat" most favored by Hong Kong gourmets is the chow. Chow mein, anyone?

If pets pose problems for humans, humans in turn create at least as many problems for pets. A major hazard for the loved one, particularly the dog, is that its humanization frequently produces all the symptoms of neurosis. An ever-increasing number of maladjusted animals are being treated in pet hospitals and by self-styled animal psychiatrists and behaviorists, many of them outright charlatans.

Mood Feedback. One qualified and highly sought-after practitioner is Beverly Hills' Dr. Dare Miller, whose celebrity patients have included Ronald Reagan's tricolored collie, the Kirk Douglases' apricot poodle, Katharine Hepburn's German shepherd, and Bob Hope's basset, miniature poodle, schnauzer, Great Dane and Lhasa Apso. The reason most people own dogs, maintains Miller, is "to meet a need for mood feedback. A dog is a mirror, reflecting back what we give him. If we're happy, the dog is happy. If we're sad, the dog is sad." Obviously, many people rely more on pets than on shrinks.

Miller not only treats old dogs for new tics. He also "reconditions" their owners (at $245, in advance, for six 50-minute sessions), which in turn helps their mutts to overcome such neuroses as "anxiety syndrome" (jumping, barking, whining), "psychosexual misorientation" (biting people) and "dominance frustration" (Fido wants to be boss). It is almost impossible, he says, to treat a neurotic dog whose owner is "a thorough cynic. The dog will be a cynic too."*

Another Southern California dog behaviorist, and former associate of Miller's, is Dr. William Campbell, who installs "hyperkinetic" hounds in isolated rooms where they are monitored round the clock by closed-circuit TV and hidden microphones. When a dog acts up, a staffer initiates a remote-control "audio-generator" that emits an ultra-high-frequency signal that relaxes the animal.

The physical health of American pets also has been going to the bowwows --or at least their owners think so. The nation's some 30,000 veterinarians treat pets for allergies and sagging jowls, give them abortions, tonsillectomies, blood transfusions, caesareans, cataract operations and pacemaker hearts, as well as hundreds of thousands of routine injections against rabies and distemper. An Atlanta vet recently operated on a boa constrictor for glaucoma. One animal hospital offers "ovary surgery for nymphomaniac bitches." A growing number of vets are specializing in pet geriatrics, expensively prolonging the lives of cherished animals with drugs and treatment. Laboratories manufacture dozens of different drugs for pets, from amphetamines to contraceptives (one manufacturer is now selling a dog food that includes a canine Pill). "A dog," explains St. Louis Veterinarian Michael Fox, "has a relationship to its owner very similar to that of an infant aged two or three. People should not be surprised if their dog shows signs of jealousy, possessiveness or extreme aggressiveness. Dogs may develop psychosomatic disorders such as asthma, hives, diarrhea, sympathetic limps, even hysterical paralysis."

Of more serious concern to naturalists is the genetic degeneration of many pet species. In the frantic race to keep up with petishism, fast-buck breeding mills are churning out more and more diseased, spavined and moronic beasts.

Because of inbreeding and overbreeding, some varieties of dogs are becoming increasingly vicious, resulting in a rising toll of dogbite victims; more than a million Americans are bitten annually. The irony is that no people, with the possible exception of the British, cares more about animals. New York's state legislature passed the first effective law prohibiting the cruel treatment of animals in 1866--43 years before passage of legislation prohibiting cruel treatment of children. But even in those days, a great deal of animal lovers' money and effort went into quixotic causes like fighting feathered hats, circuses and the use of experimental animals by Pasteur and Jenner. Today antivivisectionists are a powerful, massively financed, if misguided force in Washington. Other well-meaning groups crusade for roomier bird cages, Medicaid and tax deductions for pets, even a ban on boiling lobsters alive.

Any realistic effort to improve the lot of domestic animals should logically begin with population control. Many pet owners are opposed to surgical sterilization of cats and dogs on the sentimental ground that they should not be denied the joy of having families --which is like telling a hungry peasant that he needs to have 16 children for his peace of mind. Female cats and dogs derive little pleasure from their squalling litters, which in most cases have to be sold or given away a few weeks after birth, and may even then be abandoned.

Fees and Fines. While private vets charge around $50 to sterilize a cat or dog, Los Angeles has introduced a model system of clinics that spay females for $17.50 and neuter males for $11.50, including all required shots. By thus limiting the number of abandoned pets, the city saves money. Increasingly, reputable dealers like Manhattan's Fabulous Felines will not sell a pet unless the buyer signs a binding contract to have it sterilized.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists proposes as a next step higher licensing fees and fines for violations of leash laws, to "encourage more responsible pet ownership"; the added revenue would go to sterilization clinics. The authors also advocate a tax on pet food--1% would yield $25 million a year--to be used, for example, to finance shelters for abandoned or unwanted pets and underwrite educational programs. Pet lovers have also urged the creation of compulsory high school courses and adult seminars in animal behavior.

For Samantha, Buddy and Carol, less indulgence and more knowledge of animal behavior can only be beneficial. Possibly, though, in a world full of people racked by anxiety, anger and avarice, it is the pets who need seminars to understand humans.

* Who taught whom? The word cynic derives from the Greek kunikos, meaning doglike or currish.

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