pet photo

A Trip to the Pet Store

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Kim and I are largely the stay-cation types and enjoy the quietude of Manhattan on holidays as a rule. This week we took a walk together in the late morning of July 4. One of the cat dishes had broken earlier in the week and, as our beloved family owned store on York Avenue, Calling All Pets, was closed for the holiday, we wandered into Petco on Lexington and 86 Street to see if we could procure a replacement. We did, almost immediately, scoring the exact small white dish with pawprints in a design around the outside.

While at the check-out counter with our purchase we noticed a single bright blue Fighting Fish, a Betta, in a container at the register. He was in the sort of one serving size container you get for take-out soup and seemed a tad forlorn. Never having gone further into the store than the catfood display at the front, I had not realized that they sold fish. We decided to wander back and have a look after a brief discussion about whether or not we should add this single fish to our lives – we decided that only Cookie and Blackie would win as a result of that decision. (Our only foray into fish ownership, such as it is, was the subject of an early popular blog post Ode to a Shrimp which can be read here.)

Let me begin by stating that there is an official broad Butler family prohibition on pet stores. Betty, my mom, has actively protested them and has especially been involved with the elimination of puppy mills, at the source and in stores. My mother’s animal rights involvement is indeed another future post as she is an amazing person, but suffice it to say, I have never purchased an animal from a pet store. However, Petco did host the adoption day where we ultimately acquired Cookie and Blackie so it is in a sense their ancestral home. We discovered a small ongoing adoption center for dogs at the back of the store and, although they sell birds, there was a sign encouraging the adoption of those as well and notification that they had a parrot available. The bird display was a bit  low-key and sad. Although they seem to have a nice community here.

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However, fish tanks fascinate me and remind me of my childhood, so after a quick look at the birds we went over to examine the tanks. I never did find the friends of the Betta and perhaps he was up front because he was the last to be sold. Siamese Fighting Fish, are in the gourami fish family and, although they are gorgeous, colored in deep jewel tones with extravagant long fins, they are called fighting fish because the males are so aggressive that they cannot be in a tank together or they will fight to the death. I always believed they could not be in a tank with any other fish, but my reading online for this blog states otherwise.

The fish tank of my childhood was a tribute to the tanks of my mother’s own childhood, informed by her experience and also eventual pre-med studies of zoology and biology in college. (Douglas College, the all-women’s division of Rutgers at the time did not have a proper pre-med program and she tells me that one took a dual major to achieve the closest possible coursework.) In retrospect it wasn’t glorious by some of today’s standards (I have been in homes and offices where amazing tanks take up whole walls, maintained frequently by visiting professionals), but ours had a variety of fish with live plants which fascinated us kids and our then cats alike. (Zipper was very fond of it and liked to “pat” the fish on the glass but never reaching in; Snoopy, a very dignified cat paid it less attention. If kitten Pumpkin had an opinion I do not remember.) Like most children, we’d started with goldfish won at fairs and the like, which had sadly abbreviated lives and I guess mom figured if we were going to do it we would do it right.

Even such a fish tank at the level of ours takes a considerable amount of care and in hindsight I am a bit amazed that my mother took it on knowing what it required. Periodically the fish had to be removed and the tank and any objects (I believe there was a sea chest with treasure in it) carefully cleaned in a way and with substances that would not harm them. Then fresh water had to be prepared, the tank and plants re-installed before the fish could be returned. All of this under the watchful eyes of three small children, as many cats and a German Shepard – most likely while my father was off at work or doing something else. I remember her explaining to me that saltwater tanks were even more complicated and that she had one when she was a little girl.

Nonetheless, mom ran a pretty tight ship on the fish tank and it is a glowing memory of my childhood. Neon tetras (which can be seen in my phone video below made at Petco the other day) made up the rank and file citizens of our tank and their winking color brings me right back to being about eight years old and staring at our tank, sometimes with Zipper in my lap, so he could have his polite look.

 

 

I’m not sure I remember all of the denizens of our tank but I know we also had a few Zebra fish, some guppies and some tiny shark variety of critter. (Internet swipes stolen below.) There were also snails and a catfish sort of guy to help keep it all clean. (I liked his “whiskers” and he was a favorite to watch, often attached to the side of the tank so I could see his tummy.) Lastly, something we called an Angel fish, but I cannot really find its likes online. Our track record with keeping them all alive wasn’t entirely unblemished – I do remember a few fish funerals held at the toilet of the coincidently well located, nearby bathroom. However, in retrospect and reading even a little about it online today I realize that ours was generally a well kept and happily balanced fish tank and that even as a small child I had a sense of how fragile that ecosystem was.

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This lesson was dramatically brought home to us by the acquisition of a Kissing Gourami. Now, to mom’s credit, even online right now you will be told that this is a non-aggressive division of the species compatible with smaller fish in a tank – much like the tale of the fighting fish outlined above. Sadly, we were not to find this to be the case. This little fellow, bully that he was, began systematically eating his way through all the other fish! It wasn’t so dramatic that we realized it right away, but nevertheless it quickly became apparent – and what to do?

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As hateful as this was none of us quite had the stomach to kill him outright, but of course we could not allow him to slaughter every other fish. Luckily someone my father worked with had a much larger tank (where our Gourami would not be the biggest guy on the block) and he was packed off to live with Jack Gray’s fish, leaving us to wonder how he fared matriculating in that larger milieu. (The Buddhists have a saying, big fish eat little fish and I reflect on that often. A favorite illustration of that -from the Met of course! – below.)

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Big Fish Eat Little Fish, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Metropolitan Museum of Art collection

 

I do not remember the ultimate demise of our fish tank. I know it did not make the move to our next house when I was about 12. I assume it petered out – for which my mother was likely grateful.

After our adventure looking at fish, we had a quick tour of lizards before leaving. Generally speaking I have an okay relationship with lizards. It is a step up from rodents, for whom I wish a happy existence however I generally like to keep at arm’s length, but below furry critters who I pretty much universally want to get to know. Gecko’s proved endearing when traveling through Nepal where they ate the mammoth cockroaches in the hotels, “barking” all the while. I have a vague memory of my brother asking for a lizard and my mother saying she just couldn’t do it because all she could see was the day that she found one of our cats with a lizard tail hanging out its mouth.

I’ve always been particularly interested in chameleons. This little fellow, shown at the top of this post and below, took a real liking to me yesterday and he stood and waved at me for what seemed to be an extraordinary length of time. For all the world he did seem to be appealing to me to please take him home and I was tempted to heed his call. With Betty’s long ago words about cats and chameleon’s sadly I could not however really consider it.

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Floss

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Interesting that this card would attract me. Those of you who know my taste in canines know that I run a strong preference toward large dogs – in fact, I really like the largest of the species – Tibetan mastiffs, German Shepherds and Bernese Mountain dogs. When it comes to dogs I like ’em to be more or less horse size. However, I admit to a weakening over time toward adorable little mops like this girl here. Clearly she is someone’s prized and beloved companion – beribboned and quite literally on a pedestal here. Her name, Floss, has been neatly painted onto the neg to be printed on the card. I could be wrong, but I don’t think she’s a youngster either.

While the history of carrying a small dog seems to go way back in time (for example ancient China – and I gather from Wikipedia that in earlier times small dogs were kept to attract fleas away from their owners, rather than the other way around) there came a moment in our culture when suddenly toting a small dog around as an accessory came into fashion for the wealthy and never really went away. It was a status symbol – although I have always found it a slightly odd one admittedly. I think of films from the 40’s where as soon as a woman character actor, generally not the star, strikes it rich, she suddenly has a jolly little dog under her arm for decoration. (This is not Asta I am thinking of!) While it is no longer limited to ladies in long dresses with ropes of pearls drinking tea, the lap dog out in the world still conjures up a feminine image of a certain kind now too.

Sometimes I am jealous of how in general in Manhattan people take their dogs everywhere, but of course, most cats stay at home. (Cats on leashes and my nascent attempts at that I will save for another time.) And of course it is dogs of all sizes that one sees, but the little dogs, often tucked in special tote bags, although occasionally in dog-styled strollers, that one sees everywhere – from subway to supermarket, dining outdoors. Those pups get to see the town while my cats are home snoozing.

However, as for Floss, I’m sure she was someone’s devoted pal and this photo is a lasting tribute. Good doggie!

Pet Family Photo

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I fell hard for these photos as soon as I saw them. This young woman in her turn-of-the-century outfit holding her cat – who is making a piss-cat face, as we call it in this house, disdain at having been detained for the photo taking activity. The woman has one dog on her lap and her hand placed gently on the other, her affection for her pets is clear. Whoever printed this photo lightened the area around her a bit with some darkroom magic, as there is a subtle halo around her and the animals as a result. And then, not to be left out, the third dog was taken on the same bench (he required a bit of lightening up too I think) and framed together and the two make a whole family portrait. I guess they couldn’t round him up for the other photo? Whoever did it has him posed pitch perfect to create this double portrait.

The practice of matting photos this way is long gone and I am not even sure how one had it done. The one that has slipped cannot be moved back – it is not loose in the mat, although it looks that way. It pleases me that these photos will likely always be together this way. This photo has some other developing, chemical issues that have emerged over time, the silver shine at the bottom of the single dog is some sort of chemical wonk that has emerged.

Despite the need for some printing intervention, the light in these photos is wonderful – drifting down from above. Dreamy, late afternoon sun falling on the leaves and trees. This photo duo came from Great Britain and there is something distinctly British about the garden and the light. The young woman is looking up at the camera, almost shyly, still clearly the queen with her animal subjects and of all around her.

Floating Dock

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Continuing on in a theme of summers gone by, here is another offering. Unlike my post Alice Smalley this one is undated and without an label. It is not a photo postcard either – instead a small photo on the thick paper stock of the 40’s and 50’s with the rough, decorative edges that photos sometimes had in those days. This one of a woman and another fine tabby, a bit older but clearly just as scrappy. The woman here is a bit dressed up (that’s quite a skirt with polka dots no less – one doesn’t see polka dots as often as you once did – why is that?) perched here with sandals which I can tell you, probably weren’t that steady on that dock. It is another beautiful mountain spot. My only complaint is that this one is a bit dark.

This photo has special appeal for me because I grew up with a dock much like this at the end of our property. We moored a small sailboat off it and generally had a rowboat tied up next to the dock for the purpose of getting to the sailboat. The rowboat required bailing after each rain and that was a job that fell to my sister Loren and I for the most part. I admit that Loren was a bit better about it than me – and there is the time that she quietly untied the row boat while I was bailing – leaving me without oars and drifting off! Needless to say I was madder than a wet cat when I got a hold of her.

It probably is not surprising that the dock was a never-ending source of fascination, especially during long summer days. There were crab traps hung from it, but we would use nets to grab up crabs and fish too. Mostly we enjoyed low tide which allowed a closer examination of the bottom of the inlet of the river we lived on – named Polly’s Pond, although not really a pond in any technical sense. It’s historic name was Oyster Bay – no oysters there when I was growing up, but recently I understand that they have had success in seeding those beds and reintroducing them. For me, it will remain a mystical place of crabs and fish and long days laying out and getting tan, shared with my sister and brother and a number of curious kitties, always attracted to the possibility of excitement in the form of fish and rodents, perhaps a bit of protein hunted on the fly.

Ahoy! Cats at Sea

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This card is kind of messy, even in the printing process – the scribbles and whatnot making it even more tatty over time. (Did someone nibble on the edges of the neg before printing?) However, there’s something appealing about these two boat kitties, their images printed together. Homemade looking, but loved enough to have been stored away somewhere all these years. The one on the left looks like quite the man around town and the one on the right very dignified and in charge.

As you may know, I have expressed my ambivalence about cats at sea (it never seems to end well for them), but let’s face it, even on this blog, it is a sort of a genre. (See also, Kitty Rescue at Sea, Tom the Fire Boat Cat and Sporty among others!) While I may express some unease about cats on boats, they seem to frequent them and even enjoy them. When you consider how little cats like water this seems like an odd choice. Perhaps it is the potential for the consumption of fish?

Growing up on the waterfront in New Jersey, I had a huge fat orange tabby named Pumpkin. Pumpkin was the size of a small dog, adored me and had a bad tendency to bite most other people – usually after inviting them to rub his fluffy striped tummy. We would warn people, but they often didn’t believe us or move away fast enough. More to the point, over time Pumpkin had figured out that at certain times of the day he could jump from our floating dock to the sailboat we kept moored there. Evidently he discovered that tiny fish could be found on the deck which he would happily consume. He would then have to wait for the tide to swing the boat back to the dock so he could get off.  (I am unclear if these fish landed on the deck jumping from the water, or if the seagulls, which routinely dropped their oyster shells on the deck and dock to break them, were also responsible for the fishy build up.) While not seafaring, Pumpkin was, in his own way, one in a long line of maritime kitties.

Ode to a Shrimp

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Our cats have been a well documented part of our family here in the Butler-Deitch household, but we have housed another pet for over 14 years – a shrimp.  Kim bought this shrimp and snail ecosystem for me in 1998 after I expressed fascination with it. The glass sphere came in a huge box – carefully packed for obvious reasons.  You’ve heard me express concern about kitties and breakables (Happy Life Toy and Fear of Celluloid) and this was a red alert concern.  My then cat, Otto, was absolutely entranced by it and Kim would take it down from a high shelf to show her occasionally (yes, Otto was a girl; that’s another story) until he decided it was undue stress on the shrimp.

And I do mean single shrimp! Due to either our own ineptitude, poor design, or bad luck, most of our shrimp died pretty quickly. We were ultimately left with one (suspiciously large) shrimp.  We put him on a darker shelf than what is recommended, so that the algae wouldn’t grow too quickly since there were no snails to help consume it. (Yep, they died too although it took a bit longer to figure that out as they are a bit inactive by nature.) So there he swam, year after year, living out his shrimp life. Kim was the best at tending him – taking him out and checking on him periodically.  As the years grew longer our amazement deepened.  He rapidly exceeded the expected lifespan and headed into uncharted longevity. A Methuselah of shellfish. Cats came and went and recently Cookie in particular was itching to get a little closer to this situation.

And then, the other day, Kim checked on him and alas, he had finally gone to the big shrimp round-up. As someone interested in Buddhism, I have to wonder if he (I always thought of the shrimp as a he) had some strange karma to work out. I know it is ridiculous to say, but I never really thought he was unhappy with his solitary existence. Perhaps even harder to believe, the house seems just a tad quieter and sad without his tiny shrimp presence.

A musical tribute below!

Or if you want to adopt some shrimp yourself you can buy one here.

Postscript: My mother was given one as a gift and is, frankly, sort of horrified by it. (She is such a fierce protector of animal welfare that she cannot stand the idea that the shrimps and snails are unhappy in their habitat. We differ in that I think it seems like a pretty good gig for a shrimp or a snail.) We will probably adopt hers if we can figure how to get it from NJ to NYC in one piece. Update to follow!