SHADOW: "Flipper jumped the shark when Moby Dick was a minnow."

“Of all God’s creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash [Ask Roy Horn]. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
-- Mark Twain, “Notebook,” 1935

It was with some curiosity that Shadow and I read Erica Goode’s essay, “”Sit. Stay. Love.” in the Sunday, July 6, New York Times. After discussing Goode’s thesis over coffee and biscuits, it was decided (by Shadow) that I should conduct an interview whereby Shadow act as the spokesperson for her fellow species.

ME: Shadow, there is a body of psychoanalytical literature suggesting that humans in close company with their pets are deficient in forming inter-human bonds of affection, their latent bestial obsessions are but a symptom of Inadequate People Skills Syndrome.

After pausing to relight her pipe (or did I do that?), Shadow spoke.

SHADOW: It’s quite obvious that the charlatans who produce this kind of pseudo-scientific twaddle have never read that greatest of American writers, Mark Twain. Recall Twain’s “painstaking and fatiguing experimentation” in coming to the conclusion that all animals besides the human race “are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.” Let’s take one example of animal nobility that far outstrips humans. They don’t believe in supernatural beings. Animals don’t start churches and condemn each other to hell. As Twain put it, “Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight [does one use box-cutters for that?].” Humans are moral-hypocrites, they fantasize their own virtuousness, while ignoring the most obviously reprehensible aspects of their behavior. Take the 4th of July trauma you guys lay on us every year. Maybe Charlton Heston’s dog likes those fireworks, but us lip-stick lickin porch dogs get scared shitless. We hate thunderstorms too, but we know they’re a part of Mother Nature’s instincts, not some kind of emanations from a wiggly-floaty-thing in the sky.

ME: Wait a cotton-pickin minute, Shadow, pray tell what hypocrisy Independence Day reflects in our brave nation’s cultural psyche?

SHADOW: Come on, Me, don’t you remember last Mondays NYT op-ed piece by William Kristol? Citing Leo Strauss, the Neo-CON man of all con men, Kristol gushed that reading the Declaration of Independence “proved more thought-provoking and patriotism stirring” than a Mel Gibson tearjerker. You told me yourself that when your white conservative U-M students start crowing about the wisdom of the ‘Founding Fathers,’ you always ask the black students to speculate on who watched the slaves when these “all men are created equal” hypocrites were spinning this myth. Twain had it right: Man is the only animal who enslaves….The higher animals [like me] are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.” As for “patriotism stirring,” give me a good old-fashioned dogfight: “The higher animals engage in fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his own kind.” Humans are hypocrites, look at yourself, you decry animal cruelty, while walking around in leather shoes, eatin grass fed T-bones, and sucking down live oysters. You need to read more Peter Singer, species-hater! You disgusting creature!

ME: Now wait a minute, Shadow, you know there’s nothing better than sucking porter-house bones and gnawing cold pig-ears.

SHADOW: I guess ya got me there, Me.

ME: You know, Shadow, some people measure their lives in coffee-spoons, not me. I go by what animals I lived with in particular stretches of my life. My early years were spent with a miniature anteater we adopted from the humane society. It was a remarkable time in terms of our family picnics. He was run over by a Bunny Bread truck. After that, my mom vowed there would be no more pets. Next came a Golden Retriever-Husky mix I was given as a birthday present. She lived a good 16 years, which took me from 20 to 36. After that I vowed no more animals. Instead, I had kids. Kids, which, as I’m sure Twain would agree, are incomplete lower animals, and undoubtedly, some kind of supernatural being’s curse for the hubris of evolving. I, being doubly cursed, then, in moments of weakness, as in times of severe hangovers and such, let these imperfect offspring talk me into letting animals back into my life. And so it is I live with three parakeets, a dog, and a cat.

SHADOW: Hey, I’m not just your dog, I’m Shadow.

ME: Oh God, now you’re sounding like my kids, doggie.

SHADOW: What gets me scratchin is the way humans assign a hierarchy of animal intelligence. Dolphins. I got your dolphins. Dolphins are overrated. All dolphins have done is produce bad TV series and sucky movies. Consider television, Flipper jumped the shark when Moby Dick was a minnow. And what about that retarded movie, “Day of the Dolphin,” which featured that wife-beatin Patton, George C. Scott. That was so bad it should have inspired a triple bacon Flipper-Burger. Ever see a Dolphin eat cat shit? No? Why? Cos they ain’t that smart. Dog’s’ll survive after the rapture. Why? Cos 68 million households have pets, and that’s a lot of harvestable cat litter, buddy.

ME: Come on, Shadow, that’s enough of this. Let’s go listen to the Stooges.