Volume 41, Number 1 & 2 · January 13, 1994
A Dog's Life
By Harriet Ritvo
The Hidden Life of Dogs
by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Houghton Mifflin, 148 pp., $18.95
Particularly Cats…and Rufus
by Doris Lessing
Knopf, 129 pp., $20.00
Cats: Ancient and Modern
by Juliet Clutton-Brock
Harvard University Press, 96 pp., $16.95
Although they may not always be aware of it, pet animals are caught between worlds—members of the family, in an emotional sense, but only in very rare cases having any of the responsibilities or rights of their human companions. However comfortable, or even privileged, their lives may seem, they are always vulnerable—not only to the caprice of their owners, but, if they are allowed to spend part of their time at liberty out of doors, to the random cruelty, spite, and greed of other people. If sold or abandoned, they may find relations with humankind abruptly altered, so that they end their days in a laboratory or a cage in a pound, not on a sofa. And their status is often equivocal. An accountant once advised me (incorrectly, as it turned out) that although the costs of moving books, furniture, and close relatives were tax deductible, the cost of moving cats was not.
Review, 3758 words
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