Pet Love
Celebrating National Pet Month
May is National Pet Month in the United States. It is a celebration of the bond between pets and people—a testament to the immense joy that pets bring to our lives. Through the years, the deep connection that I experienced with our family pets was a source of support, companionship, visibility, and love.
Buttons
‘Twas the night before Christmas 1970, and we’d all settled in for what we thought would be a long winter’s nap. We were on the second floor of a two-family house, a three-room Brooklyn apartment with no chimney. Yet our stockings were hung with care. And our Christmas tree was standing tall.
But don’t believe that stuff in the famous poem about no creatures stirring. We had a cat. And somehow, someway, the cat was stirring into the wee hours, and we didn’t hear a thing.
Mom got up early on Christmas morning and walked into the living room. What she saw shocked her. She screamed: “Get Up! Get Up! Look what this Bastard Did!”
She was not talking about Santa.
My sister and I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. We had never seen such a desecration of a Christmas display in our lives. The gifts were crushed under the weight of the Christmas tree, which was down for the count, its sparkling balls shattered. The manger and village looked like they had been pillaged by invading hordes.
Not even the curtain rods were spared. They were bent and the curtains they held up were snagged—tender threads and fabrics pulled and torn.
The culprit had slipped out of the room, running into the bedroom and under the beds, seeking protection from Mom’s wrath.
His name was Buttons. And he was our cat. And despite all his destructive tendencies, we still loved him.
Buttons was born on March 17, 1969; by June, he was ours. We found out soon thereafter that he loved cheesecake (especially Junior’s Cheesecake)—and it became his go-to birthday cake every year.
It didn’t take long for Buttons to win us over with his hilarious, rambunctious, mischievous behavior. Granted, it wasn’t too hilarious waking up to that Christmas nightmare, but despite his penchant for always getting into trouble, he’d find a way to purr his way to forgiveness.
Mom often called Buttons by his name, but every time he aggravated her, she’d resort to that other B-word. Funny enough, a year after the ransacking of the Christmas display, I was tape-recording my own recitation of “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. (And I still have that cassette recording!) Mom was busy putting away newly laundered clothes in the bedroom dresser. The moment she walked back into the living room to retrieve the linens, Buttons jumped right on top of the clean clothes, circled and made himself comfortable. I tried not to pay attention, but when I got to the line, “While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads,” Mom walked back in, saw Buttons and yelled: “Look, look at this Bastard, look at him. Get out of there!” Buttons ran—and I lost it, never quite making it to the end of the Clement Clark Moore poem.
If days like that were funny, nights with Buttons were utterly crazy. At the witching hour, he’d give us a preview with guttural, primal sounds before beginning his nonstop running through the house at breakneck speeds—jumping up walls, skidding across floors, slamming upon our resting bodies in bed just to get our attention. At one point, Mom decided to put him out at night, but when he didn’t come back for two weeks, we were certain he’d used up all his nine lives. Amazingly, he returned with a small abrasion on his nose, and we convinced Mom never to put him out at night again.
So, we began hooking him up till morning, all within a comfortable distance to his litter box and his dishes. But even this did not deter him from getting Mom up before dawn. It was almost a religious ritual. We’d hear his meowing getting louder and louder, until he’d get so worked up that he’d start to puke. Well, actually, he rarely puked. He knew that just the sound of puking—that sound that cat owners know so well—would get Mom up and running to his aid. (I must admit that I became an expert in imitating that sound, which still makes my friends laugh.)
When he wasn’t keeping us up at night or catnapping during the day, Buttons was unbelievably playful. He also terrorized a goldfish I’d won in a street fair—which lived for more than ten years in our fish tank (yes, that’s Buttons stalking Goldie below).
Buttons was also best friends with his cousin Shannon, my brother and sister-in-law’s gorgeous and lovable Irish Setter. They would run throughout the house together and play rough. But never too rough. Sometimes, the cat’s whole head disappeared inside Shannon’s mouth; other times, Buttons would lick Shannon’s fur tenderly and then, unprovoked, he’d bite down on him. Never did we hear a yelp from either of them. They were quite a pair.
Above all else, Buttons was a source of profound comfort to me during all those years that I struggled with a congenital GI condition. He’d cuddle up with me all those days I was home sick from school and during the many months of recovery I endured after my lifesaving 1974 duodenojejunal bypass surgery.
So, it was truly heartbreaking when Buttons started having age-related kidney deterioration, and we were compelled to give him Sub-Q (subcutaneous fluid administration) to sustain him. The night before he died, he dragged himself to every room in the apartment, as if to say goodbye. He crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 1987, a day before his eighteenth birthday.
So devastating was that loss that we swore we’d never get another pet.
Little did we know that a Chihuahua mix, born on July 6, 1989, would ultimately find her way to our home and our hearts.
Blondie
I hadn’t had many experiences with dogs, though before I turned 5, I’d had a cat named Peppers, two parakeets (one named Too-Too, the other named Too-Too-Two) and a dog named Timmy. Timmy was the son of Becky the Beagle. My experiences with Becky made me reluctant to walk dogs. When I was 6 or 7 years old, and kept insisting that I wanted to walk Becky, they tied Becky’s leash around my wrist, so I wouldn’t let go of her. But when Becky’s owner called out to her, “Come on, Becky!”—she took off. And so did I. If you’ve ever seen the 1959 version of “Ben-Hur”, when Messala gets dragged behind the horses of his chariot, you’d understand. I was dragged by Becky a good half-block and still have the scar on my right knee to prove it.
Fortunately, the episode didn’t cloud my vision of dogs.
In July 1990, my friend Matthew adopted Blondie from the North Shore Animal League. But he worked long hours and it ultimately fell on me and my sister to trek over to his apartment to walk her. I was older and stronger at this point, and given Blondie’s size, I knew that the memories of the Becky Incident would not be repeated.
Things got even more complex because Blondie was so adorable and she was slowly melting away any reluctance we may have had to get too close to another pet. It was never an unwelcome task to care for her in Matt’s absence. Indeed, when he went on long business trips, Blondie would stay with us.
Around this time, Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, so having Blondie around was a comfort to her. And to us. It was no time before Matt realized that Blondie had found a stable home life. As the weeks passed by, my mother suspected something was up. She finally asked: “But when is this dog going home?” We broke the news to her: Blondie was now a permanent resident of the Sciabarra household. Mom was elated. And any time Matt visited, he was greeted with the licks he’d come to expect. In fact, Blondie loved sharing kisses with all of us, nobody more than my sister, whose lips must have thinned from all the kissing.
We took so many photos of Blondie that I created an exclusive gallery on my home page dedicated to her. Here are just a few of them—solo, with her toys, with me, my sister, and across the seasons (Halloween, Christmas, and summer vacations).
Blondie loved her stuffed animals, which multiplied with each passing holiday and birthday celebration. In fact, a few of them she loved a little bit too much—like the Grinch, the Cat-in-the-Hat, and Tulip the Hippo, all of whom she ferociously mounted.
She went on countless trips with us—from Manhattan Beach and Marine Park in Brooklyn to the Sound shores of the North Fork of Long Island at Matt’s summer home. Yet, unlike other dogs, Blondie was not thrilled with car rides. We always had barf bags on hand anytime we traveled.
On the beach, however, Blondie protected our blanket as if she owned it. In fact, as small as she was, she protected the beach as if she owned it and would get rowdy anytime she saw people or even a dog four times her size approaching us.
She was also, perhaps, the most educated dog. She sat on my lap as I read aloud the text to the books I typed on my computer—all three books in my Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy.
A bundle of chaos and joy, she was a faithful companion to the end. When she died at the age of 16 on January 12, 2006, I posted a photo of her on my Notablog with a single sentence: “I’m heartbroken.” The outpouring of love and support from friends near and far deeply moved me.
And my sister and I swore we’d never get another pet …
Dante
… until my friend Richie needed to move and left us with the responsibility of caring for his beloved cat, Dante, or as he used to call him, his “Dante-Doo”.
A beautiful cat with a pink nose and soft, pink pads on his paws, Dante stayed with us from 2010 through 2017. Born on April 29, 2000, he was the exact opposite of Buttons. Peaceful. Tranquility incarnate. Totally chill.
Resting next to me, he’d fall asleep on my hand, as my fingers gently stroked his chin. If I happened to dose, he’d gently meow to remind me that I was slacking off on the rubs. So, I’d continue to rub his chin.
Dante was fearless. Until the night of the Big Thunderstorm. A lightning bolt and booming thunderstrike seemed to hit within inches of our upstairs apartment. It was a hair-raising moment that sent him flying into another room. (And I was right behind him!)
The storm had its aftereffects. Dante used to watch television as if he was absorbing everything on screen. After that thunderstorm, anytime Dante saw a weather report, in which colorful graphics depicted a forecast of rain, he would gently pick himself up off the bed and take cover. It was uncanny.
Dante had a thyroid condition for years, and we administered his medication with clockwork regularity. And then, on November 11, 2017, he quietly slipped away.
The passing of every pet is a time of immense grief. It also reminds us of previous losses, a cumulative heartbreak that continues to bolster our resolve not to go through those trials and tribulations again. And yet, somehow, someway, the heart gives in when another special friend comes along.
Cali
And so, in that same year, on June 21, 2017, Cali the Calico was born. Our great Dr. Linda Jacobson—a loving and humane vet and dear friend who cared for every pet we ever had—convinced us that we could give Cali a good home.
Cali was an adventurous, independent soul. And unlike any cat of ours, she loved playing fetch with her plush, foam balls. “Go get it” was a phrase that would send her into a playful frenzy. But she was not destructive like Buttons. Whereas Buttons would take down a Christmas tree, Cali just wanted to sprawl in front of the manger and the village. She traveled with us often to the North Fork of Long Island, taking in the sights of Long Island Sound and the blooming, buzzing beauty of nature.
Regrettably, when my sister became deathly ill in November 2020, Cali was adversely affected. Under increasingly difficult circumstances, we were compelled to give her up. Fortunately, she found a good home. But giving her up was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.
Cali was the last pet I ever had. Indeed, she was the last pet I will ever have. I say this with some sadness, but also with realism. My chronic health problems have required ongoing procedures that make it impossible for me to take on the responsibility of caring for another pet.
Pepper
Because I’ve had cats and dogs as pets, I’ve been asked if I’m a ‘cat-person’ or a ‘dog-person’. It’s not surprising that, given my dialectical sensibilities, I don’t view this in either/or terms, but as both/and. Yes, there are enormous species-specific distinctions between cats and dogs, but my history with both shows vast individual personality differences within each category.
Though I’m unable to have another pet at this time in my life, I still enjoy meaningful connections with the cats and dogs of friends and neighbors. But I’ve nourished a special bond with another kind of animal over the past year. It was love at first sight when I encountered Pepper, the Diamondback Terrapin, who resides a few blocks away from my apartment at the Marine Park Salt Marsh Nature Center. As his biography indicates, Pepper was “born in the wild in 2005, but … was taken into captivity by someone who thought [he] would make a good pet.” Fortunately, Pepper was rescued and now is a permanent resident of the Nature Center.
I try to visit Pepper every weekend, when the center is open. He clearly recognizes me after all this time. He rushes from one end of his tank to the other the moment he sees me. He follows my every movement and sometimes, he comes to the surface to greet me. What a sweetheart!
Pepper is 21 years old and well-cared for. Under these conditions, terrapins have been known to live for 30 to 40 years. May Pepper live long and prosper!
Visibility and Companionship
It is no coincidence that every pet we ever had lived to a ripe old age. Buttons lived till he was 18; Blondie was 16 when she died; and Dante was 17. Yes, we were lucky to have healthy pets. But we were also diligent with veterinary visits, required inoculations, and administering medications when necessary. Beyond that, it’s not just about caring, feeding, walking, or playing with a pet. It’s about loving, engaging, being in the moment, enjoying companionship and, perhaps most of all, nourishing a bond between your self and the consciousness of another sentient being. It’s about feeling visible.
In his trailblazing book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, Nathaniel Branden related the story of his bond with his wire-haired fox terrier, Muttnik. He tells us how he used to play with “mock ferociousness” with Muttnik, who grasped the “playfulness” of his intentions. The dog’s “snarling and snapping and striking back” was “unfailingly gentle in a manner that projected total, fearless trust.”
Branden recognized that Muttnik provided the value of companionship. He identified his experience as a special bond with a “conscious entity with whom to interact and communicate.” It helped him to enunciate what he would call “the Muttnik principle”. Muttnik’s response to his playfulness was an apprehension of his intentions. “The effect of Muttnik’s behavior,” Branden wrote, “was to make me feel seen, to make me feel psychologically visible (at least to some extent). Muttnik was responding to me, not as a mechanical object, but as to a person.” He extended this principle to human relationships:
Just as there are many different aspects of a man’s personality and inner life, so a man may feel visible in different respects in different human relationships. He may experience a greater or lesser degree of visibility, over a wider or narrower range of his total personality—depending on the nature of the person with whom he is dealing and on the nature of their interaction. … All the forms of interaction and communication among people—intellectual, emotional, physical—can serve to give a man the perceptual evidence of his visibility in one respect or another; or relative to particular people, can give him the impression of invisibility. Most men are largely unaware of the process by which this occurs; they are aware only of the results. They are aware that, in the presence of a particular person, they do or do not feel “at home,” do or do not feel a sense of affinity or understanding or emotional attunement.
That is why this “Visibility Principle” is so crucial. A person “desires and needs the experience of self-awareness that results from perceiving his self as an objective existent—and he is able to achieve this experience through interaction with the consciousness of other living entities.” And among these entities are our pets.
We can experience a sense of psychological visibility in our interactions with our pets. But the joy we derive goes deeper. The bond that is nourished between person and pet is often marked by a kind of unconditional acceptance that remains constant regardless of circumstances. Just as we can offer pets a safe haven from the elements of a sometimes cruel world, so too pets can become our own safe haven. But mutual trust and care do not exist in a vacuum; they can only be built within a context of patience, responsibility, and commitment over time.
Every pet we’ve ever had was a significant part of our family. That significance is marked even beyond the grave. My sister and I so adored our special family members that our last wills and testaments arranged for the pets’ cremains to be interred with the first of us to pass away. The cremated remains of Buttons, Blondie, and Dante are already resting with my sister’s cremains in a niche, where many years from now (hopefully!) my remains will join them.
Before anyone raises an eyebrow, of course, there is a difference between the love I had for my sister and the love I had for each of our pets. But love is not a zero-sum game. It is not a limited resource. It is experienced in so many ways—the love of life, of self, of one’s work, and of others—from pets to people. And the totality of our love—indeed, the multifaceted capacity to love—sustains and nourishes meaningful living.
Branden became a dear personal friend of mine in later years. He expressed his deep condolences in two separate comments on my Notablog when we lost Blondie. His words continue to resonate and apply to all the pets we ever loved—and lost:
My heartfelt sympathy for your loss. Blondie’s gift to you was the love she inspired in you. That gift will remain. A chance to love deeply—isn’t that something we all long for? …
To those of us who own dogs, or owned them in the past, your pain at the loss of Blondie is fully understandable. My dog Takara died in 1979, a long time ago, but your remarks about Blondie brought all the pain back, brought tears to my eyes, brought the awful feeling that a piece of me had been torn away forever. My consolation lies in this thought: how wonderful it was to have something in my life that inspired such deep feelings. We all have a need for an outlet for a capacity to love, and that is one of the great gifts a pet can provide. Be grateful for the pain. It is the other side of love. Blondie’s gift to you was the emotions she inspired in you while she lived—and inspired in you now.
Love,
Nathaniel
Indeed, the depth of my grief over the loss of every family member, including our pets, has been matched only by the depth of my love. Joyful, cherished memories, hinted at in today’s scrapbook essay, keep the love alive.
In tribute to the joy, the love, and the memories, every month is National Pet Month.