Whenever I delve into pre-60s entertainment I am bound to run across more than one account of cats and dogs getting sexy in the night. You can find tons of novelty songs about this situation (my favourite is "Mama Will Bark"), folks in television shows were always throwing boots and cans at cats on their fences, and the love-howls of cats were a notorious part of the typical "tenement symphony."
So why don't I ever hear them?
I think I heard a cat in heat once -- a brief unearthly howling under my window that was hopefully feline in origin -- and I remember seeing two dogs hopelessly coupled many years ago, but other than that...nothing. The cats just skulk around in search of squirrels, and the dogs just bark out of housebound anxiety, not because they're trying to entice.
(I do have to mention the platonic man-dog love affair carried on between my neighbour and his whippet named "Frodo." Whenever Frodo disappears, my hulking, car-fixing, hyper-masculine neighbour goes staggering around the block screaming "FROOOODO!!!")
Do I live in a well-mannered neighbourhood? Or have we so absorbed the "have your pets spayed or neutered" mantra that we've cut down on late-night amorous yowling? I don't know. But I think I'm glad I'm missing out.
6 comments:
Be glad. Since: 1) This means there aren't more unwanted animals born, and 2) It isn't pleasant.
I had a foster kitten in my home go into heat last year. Since all my cats are already S/N'ed, the boys were like "WTF?" as she tried to seduce him. She got fixed as soon as it was over, but I caught her antics on film. Go ahead, call me an amateur kitty pr0n producer. ;)
You're depraved! Exploiting that poor puss. But I bet it's funny to watch.
In the first student housing slum I lived in, a beat-up old tomcat would invade our common area and spray the furniture. Amazingly, I was the only one who could smell it.
I hope it's because more people are spaying and neutering, but I'm sure Animal Control/SPCA/etc. would beg to differ.
Yes, I have a feeling that if I lived in a certain sort of neighbourhood, I'd get a nightly serenade.
Though I have no evidence...
>>The cats just skulk around in search of squirrels, and the dogs just bark out of housebound anxiety, not because they're trying to entice.
For some reason, the way you phrased that observation, it struck me as very sad and forlorn and poetic--like it was a metaphor for the passing away of passion in all of us, not just dogs and cats...as if our society itself may have become neuter.
Damn my English degree! It's always getting me into funks like this... :)
If you ever, EVER wonder if there's a deeper meaning in one of my blog posts, please keep in mind that they're usually written while I'm eating cereal during the half-hour window between waking up and going to work.
That said...errr...OF COURSE that's what I meant! We're all like dogs and cats, here in status symbol land! Rows of houses that are all the same...
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