Animal Affliction

Dear Dog Lady,

I read and watched with shock and disgust all the stories about a woman whom the Boston media dubbed “The Cat Lady.” She crammed cats into a couple of apartments on Boston’s Beacon Hill and in Watertown. Cat Lady seems like a genuine loony tune. I mean, who else but a crazy person could live amongst cat feces, corpses, and kitty-sicles in the freezer? Maybe the media made too much of this story about the Cat Lady. But aren’t you embarrassed to call yourself Dog Lady, considering the nutty connotation?

Frank, Boston, Mass.

Frankly, Frank, Dog Lady was a tad ashamed when the Cat Lady kicked up so much media dirt. Not that Dog Lady has anything to hide, but when stories about animal abuse hit the headlines -- and the alleged offender is sneered at as a eccentric “Lady” then it vicariously sickens anyone who is pet friendly -- to dogs, cats, birds, iguanas, pot-bellied pigs, whatever.

Dog Lady and Cat Lady are two different animals. Dog Lady has one beloved dog that doesn’t stink up the house. Dog Lady also has a sense of joy and whimsy about her pet. Cat Lady has her dark issues. For her, pet ownership is not about health and happiness. She is sick and deserves our human understanding, although Cat Lady stretched the limits of tolerance.

There is a mental illness, which experts refer to as "animal hoarding" -- a condition that causes compulsives to collect animals (http://www.wisconsinhrs.org/Articles/hoarding.html). The woman hoarded cats -- live ones, sick ones, and dead ones. She did have a dog, a Great Dane, who was near death when police raided her place. She called herself a “breeder.” But she seems to be seriously deluded. In one court appearance, she snarled at the judge so inappropriately that she looked grossly out of touch with reality. Call her Femme Feral. Cat Lady, alas, is not a lady.

Anyone who keeps too many animals in too small a space is harming the animals. Any reasonable person understands this. Yet, always, there are stories of deranged people who go too far, who keep too many cats or dogs -- many of them dead or undernourished. Media outlets jump on these twisted tales of tails.
Cats and dogs sell newspapers and provide great incentive to tune in at 11.
Cat and dog stories are visceral -- tragic, triumphant, cuddly, or inspirational.

Remember the recent saga of Dosha, the dog in New York who was run over by a car, shot in the head by a police officer, and taken to the animal morgue? Dosha astounded everyone -- especially the morgue workers -- by sitting up and surviving her ordeal. The odyssey of the dog that wouldn’t die made headlines around the world.

Frank, Dog Lady cringes at the gross irresponsibility and neglect by people who mistreat animals. Dog Lady can barely watch “Animal Precinct” or “Animal Cops” on the Animal Planet cable channel, even though many of the stories of animal abuse end happily as the wounded creature is healed and adopted into a happier home.

Dog Lady can only hope the animals in Cat Lady’s surviving mangy menagerie end up in sane, loving homes.

Posted by Dog Lady at May 21, 2003 07:56 AM