Raphael's Secret

Raphael’s Secret

Choosing a Pet Companion

"Cats and dogs living together!!!!" It was the most hilarious line in Bill Murray's earth-threatening definition of "A disaster of Biblical proportions!" [Ghostbusters (1984)]. It was at that point in the phantasmic tale that we realized, however much in spoof, that things truly might be coming apart...And we know just the same thing when angry clouds release furiously over our heads in the lightning and thunder of a chaotic summer storm that threatens to raise the rafters and drown us while doing so: "MY GOD, IT'S RAINING CATS AND DOGS OUTSIDE!!!!!"

We know in our hearts how different the two are--sly cats and vicious dogs….

However, in reality, the two species can live very peacefully under the same roof, as our Siamese, Sammie, and toy poodle, Smokey, proved for ten years; as our neighbor's distinctive pumpkin-shaped (orange) cat (named, of course, "Pumkin," and pinkish-nosed Border collie (who ran like a Blaze around cars...) proved for years (both before departing long before their years, of the "big C").  (I mourned the cat most, their owner, mourned the dog much more.)  Cats and dogs are, regardless, the polar opposites of temperament, and, in fact, lifestyle. Rare is the devoted fan of both. Usually, it is either one or the other.....

In America, Fido wins.....It's interesting to wonder, "Why?"

I have to admit, I am one of the rare ones--tilted historically towards the mysteries of the mystical cat (Men are not supposed to like cats, of course: they don’t fetch, they don’t hunt, and they have failed miserably in frightening intruders away…save perhaps, for Halloween night.)  Nearly everyone is engaged by the playfulness of a kitten, but my family went further in decidedly preferring the full-grown tuxedo half-Persian we lived with for 18 years--over the 5-6 dogs we tried to live with in the first half of the same time period. I think we were amazed how, wherever our frequently-moving family settled for a while, our cat, Pandy, was always able to feel at home, entertain herself, play by herself, find adventure somewhere, everywhere, through curiosity. Even if caught in the hottest of those long summer days before air-conditioning, she just basked in it and dozed—better than with any drug--as if she had just handed over a certificate to a free sauna or steamroom..... I never, ever learned to be that content in life--had too much to do to "stay afloat"--but I will always deeply admire the ability of cats to find entertainment and satisfaction in the deep reaches of themselves, seeming even to opiate themselves, for however long the day lasts….

My sister, an MD, like our Dad, has harbored up to six cats at a time, each with a wonderfully creative name I could never have conjured up, like Misses Perky Punkin, or Misses Merissa Mocalatte, or Rowdy Redbeard, the veritable pirate about whom she is now penning a book.  It should be a testimonial to the level of inspiration we have received from them, putting us at one, I guess, with the wellspring of all spiritual cultures, and pinnacle of feline admirers, the Egyptians. (It is neither a secret that Christianity embodies elements pre-saged there, nor a surprise that my sister is still devoted much of her life to her version of spiritual focus and discipline. She is tuned in, just as the cats seem to be, both sublimely satisfied with the long silences apparently needed to satisfactorily beam up.)

What about the litter box? Our cat had none. It was the days before subdivisions, when everyone who didn't live on a farm, lived in-town. Towns don't pass by-laws about cats, or at least they didn't back then. Pandy (Pandora) roamed the neighborhood at night, reliably arriving on our step in the early morning, with either a prize for us in her small jaws, which she would drop on our step just as we opened the back door (a snake or mouse eliminated) or the scars of a truly terrible night-time mother-of-all-battles, in her efforts to protect what she understood to be our territory (violated by some lowly possum or raccoon too ignorant to acknowledge such clear, civilized concepts--but, unfortunately, armed with teeth sharper and bigger than hers).  Of course, to be fair to her, we never got to see what the raccoon looked like in the morning. We simply imagined the skulky creature unscathed and only slightly bothered.  But, for those forced to live in subdivisions, my daughter has solved the litter box conundrum by training her rescued Himalayan, "Picasso", to use properly use "the facilities"…in a separate bathroom (of course!)

But the dogs!!!! That is another story, far less gratifying:  Two bit us, one by accident in Montclair NJ, in a panic from being chased a couple of blocks by the lemonade-stand folding-chair he was moored to--hot-on-his-trail, all two blocks down the hill to the really "bad" part of town. (The other biting dog was motivated from just a strikingly vile temperament that scared us every night as he growled viciously behind the door of the laundry room, and which finally came out in a quick attack as we tried to calm him one morning in the yard.) One ran away in a storm, never to return; one, a beautiful mature boxer named Blitzen, donated to us in Montclair, transferred with us to Mendham, forced us kids to get up at 5:00 am for long solitary walks every morning. The other I simply forget. Probably couldn't house-train him.

On the occasions when we sat in the evening as a family, with our father, who I am convinced still felt Mississippi dirt under his boyhood bare feet when he spoke of hunting there with .22 cartridges he loaded--on whatever terrace or porch our then-current house gave us, our dog too-often was the one who just had to be on the other side of the screen door he or she was sitting in front of at that moment....at least until he changed his mind on the other side. Pandy, on the other hand, had the adequate social prescience to remain quiet, listening to the wafting of this reconnoitering family talk, the planning of strategy, and positively enjoying the graces of dust, the oncoming breeze of the night. These were the days when the three black and white channels on TV couldn't quite compete with a family precisely parsing what the outside world had told us all this week….

And yet, America loves dogs……while cats, for their part, are in danger of being on the receiving end of rocks thrown by truly mean versions of teenagers who need to be "hardcore" to keep from feeling vulnerable.  So cats know the woods and tall grass of fields at night.

Nevertheless, I have not been a real fan of dogs, for the reasons and events mentioned...until recently, until Raphi--short for "Raphael", the archangel of healing--who came into my life at just the right time.
The Platonic Ideal tells us that there is a Perfect form of “Dog” somewhere beyond our reckoning, from which all real dogs are just an entertaining variation on a theme.....I wonder if the one real Perfect Dog guides the big goofy smile--almost a knowing leer--my standard poodle directs at me every morning, which clearly says to my approach--with its head tilted to one side, and wise droopy eyes--"I know you! You'd rather just be playing ball....can't fooool me!!!! You're just a kid, like me....huh?" No worry, no protestation of higher concerns can faze him.

I finally understand. That goofy-toothy smile of his embodies the genius of dogs everywhere: the ability to bring out in us the very least sophisticated, least pretentious in us--to be as we were before we had any of the accomplishments or skills we think set us aside, and a little up, from others--any literacy that prevents us from communicating fully and openly....

Not to say that Raphi is stupid! Remember, I said he is a genius. My wife knew that when she meticulously selected him out in the country. He knows how to get the job done! When I step out onto the patio without him, he is on his hind legs, first only to tap on the glass of the door, but quickly and intensely using his big paws to flip the dead-bolt lock, or turn the knob, if I don't cooperate. And when I accidentally left him without water in the kitchen last week, he very logically solved the problem by proceeding to the water dispenser on the fridge and dispensing an adequate portion for him to drink directly with some left on the floor for his smaller friend, Smokey. Raphi knows. He's no fool. (Though I have to admit that he didn't seem like much of a genius last night at 2 am, when I found him and his smaller cohort seemingly drifting slowly in an approximate counter-clockwise circle in the laundry room--on the lake of blue detergent Raphi had managed to deliver with a strategic bite to the bottom of a yellow one-gallon container.)

I now know the main method of dogs' genius: to bring us to the real world we knew as children, near the grass, with feet in the dirt, and to fetch a morning greeting from others so inclined; to enjoy the simple things.

Their secret weapon is the Walk. The wake-up, down-to-earth walk. Sure, they can hunt too, but only a few of us are interested in that.

I remember better now what Blitzen, the regal boxer, actually did for us at that early hour out in the Mendham farm field, at 11 years old, examining the rough earth with the first hint of light, my sight drawn to the thousand-foot grand hill above our house, wondering about the huge, seemingly silent, convent there--whether anyone there was looking down on me, a speck in the eye, away from the world of school and fast-talking kids, a couple of hours in front of me--listening to the wakening of birds, and spying the outlines of the clouds.

Even then, it was just to say hello.

Maybe I always was a dog person, Raphael!