"Din-dins, everyone!" First, imported sardines, then chicken croquettes in white wine sauce, with a few Yummies to follow. That's for Samantha. For Buddy, there are flamed medallion of beef and vitamin-enriched doughnuts. Carol's getting fruit treats.
Oh, for Pa and Ma and you kids, it's spaghetti again. No meatballs. Inflation, remember?
With infinite variation but only slight exaggeration, some such table d'hôte is presented daily in countless American households. Samantha the cat, Buddy the beagle, Carol the canary, and myriad other furred, finned, scaly and feathered creatures are not only members of the great extended U.S. family; they are more equal than most. The U.S. pet set gets not only more nutritious meals but also better medical care and vastly more affection than the great majority of the world's people.
Wag and Purr. Pets are the surrogate children— and husbands and wives— of Western society, returning, for kibbles and kisses, companionship and devotion, or at least a cool tolerance accepted as love. Like pharaohs and czars and Caesars, Americans surround themselves with absurdly exalted animals. In a disjointed society and a disquieting world, these anthropomorphized adoptees can be counted on to wag and purr and warble, warming human hearts and hearths until they pass expensively on to await us in the Great Pet Sheraton Upstairs.
The U.S. today is undergoing what can only be described as an animalthusian explosion. There are enough pet species in this country alone—some 5,000—so that just one pair from every category would require, come the deluge, a Noah's ark the size of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
The some 100 million dogs and cats in the U.S. reproduce at the rate of 3,000 an hour, v. the 415 human babies born each 60 minutes. An estimated 60% of the 70 million American households own pets—including 350 million fish, 22 million birds and 8 million horses—and nearly 30% of these families have more than one. No less a journal than the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has urgently advocated zero population growth for pets. Otherwise, in dark moments one can envision a vast, real-life re-enactment of George Orwell's Animal Farm, with all the captive creatures, from apes to zebras, dispossessing their patrons and decreeing: "Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy; whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend."
In the view of alarmists, the revolution may already have begun. Pet alligators have fled their habitats and begun to multiply in city sewers. South American piranhas have checked out of private aquariums to infest Southern waterways. Pet snakes of many deadly varieties escape and terrorize whole neighborhoods. Argentine monk parakeets are fleeing the cage and filching the fruit from Midwestern orchards. Land snails slither out of home aquariums to gnaw the stucco outside. A fugitive kangaroo has hopped 250 miles through Illinois and zapped several cops. In every city in America, abandoned dogs rampage in wild packs through vacant lots and nocturnal streets. In New York City alone, 38,000 people annually require medical attention for dogbites. In rural areas, wild dogs cause at least $5 million in cattle losses each year.