Like everything else, human-animal relationships also change with the seasons. During the long winter, the dogs and cat stick much more closely to me. Granted they probably all do this for warmth to some extent, especially at night when the temperature plunges. But in addition to that, the pets function as animate lights, brightening those long, dark days of winter in a manner no lamp can. In fact, we create such an atmosphere of human-animal coziness, I invariably succumb to the illusion that this interspecies combined We will last forever.
The illusion vanishes as it always does, losing one photon of brightness for each photon of added daylight that heralds every spring. I foolishly tell myself, “It’s not time yet! It’s -10 degrees, for Pete’s sake!” But it doesn’t matter. As the days grow longer, I sense them pulling away, heeding the siren call of an earth about to be reborn.
Hertz, the canary, makes the first move. When I uncover his cage, he greets me wide-eyed, wearing what I consider a “What took you so long?” rather than winter’s “Wha…time to get up already?” expression. Tentative chirps fill the air. Then one day it happens. He explodes in song, reducing me from my role as the center of his avian life to that of an alien audience. He practices and flits, singing at the top of his voice while I groggily stare at my bowl of granola. Less than a month previously, I ate in silence. Now the sound of his singing fills the house. “I’m a bird, a male bird! A most handsome devil!” I imagine him shouting. “Oh baby oh baby, check out this cage! It’s big and roomy. I have my own human cook and cleaning lady, too! Clean paper every day. Good seeds, fruits, and veggies. I am a master of the Canary Universe!” he ends with a thrilling leap upward.
Gone is the sleepy little bird who found my activities so fascinating over the winter. This bird is ready to take on the world.
The cat also reminds me that, contrary to what I might want to believe, he is a cat first and my companion second. As Hertz begins testing his voice as the days grow longer, Whit becomes, for lack of a more tasteful description, a pain in the ass. It starts with feline cabin fever. He stalks me and the dogs unmercifully, sneaking up and belting us with a velvet paw no matter how hard we try to foil him. He lies upside down under the edge of the shower curtain and kicks out as I go by, scaring me out of my wits and adding more pinholes to the curtain where the tips of his claws dig in. He gets under couches and chairs and exposes the tip of his tail which he flicks at us seductively. After years of this idiotic set-up, the dogs and I should know not to fall for it because the tail will vanish before we get anywhere near. Nonetheless, we do.
Somewhere in the house, Whit also stores cement cat-sneakers which he pulls out as the days grow longer. As darkness falls, he dons them so that he sounds like a thundering herd stampeding up and down the stairs and through the house as he returns to his nocturnal roots. If I get up in the middle of the night, he’s no longer curled at the foot of my bed. He’s sitting on the wood box next to the window, watching, ever watching. In spite of myself, I look outside, too. I see nothing, but like Whit, I know they’re out there. All the critters, big and small, thinking about territories and mates, edgy with anticipation.
The more domesticated dogs don’t get as carried away as the cat and canary, but they also change. During the winter, they quickly dispatch with the elimination duties associated with that first, early morning trip outdoors. As the days get longer, so does the time they spend finding the perfect spot. The warmer temperatures surely encourage them, but probably not as much as all the scents exposed as the snow melts. Regardless what time we go out, they often spend time standing like statues save for a barely perceptible flaring of nostrils. It’s as if they find all the new scent data so overwhelming, they daren’t inhale, lest they overload.
One glorious evening as we all stood outside together, a pack of coyotes began howling somewhere in the forest above. As if controlled by the same program, the pets and I all froze and stood there listening as the sound drifted down the slope and into the valley below. For me, the feeling was one of oneness with all that is unlike any I’ve ever experienced. At the same time, though, the wildness of it all and the expressions on my animals’ faces made it perfectly clear that we each dwelt in our own unique species world, too. That coyote chorus was taking their minds to places mine could never go.
The feelings at this time of year are so intense and so indescribably pure that I can’t imagine how empty life would be without them. I know that many people live without this experience. But given how fundamental, how primeval the feelings of spring are, I can’t imagine that they don’t miss it.
Like everything else, human-animal relationships also change with the seasons. During the long winter, the dogs and cat stick much more closely to me. Granted they probably all do this for warmth to some extent, especially at night when the temperature plunges. But in addition to that, the pets function as animate lights, brightening those long, dark days of winter in a manner no lamp can. In fact, we create such an atmosphere of human-animal coziness, I invariably succumb to the illusion that this interspecies combined We will last forever.
The illusion vanishes as it always does, losing one photon of brightness for each photon of added daylight that heralds every spring. I foolishly tell myself, “It’s not time yet! It’s -10 degrees, for Pete’s sake!” But it doesn’t matter. As the days grow longer, I sense them pulling away, heeding the siren call of an earth about to be reborn.
Hertz, the canary, makes the first move. When I uncover his cage, he greets me wide-eyed, wearing what I consider a “What took you so long?” rather than winter’s “Wha…time to get up already?” expression. Tentative chirps fill the air. Then one day it happens. He explodes in song, reducing me from my role as the center of his avian life to that of an alien audience. He practices and flits, singing at the top of his voice while I groggily stare at my bowl of granola. Less than a month previously, I ate in silence. Now the sound of his singing fills the house. “I’m a bird, a male bird! A most handsome devil!” I imagine him shouting. “Oh baby oh baby, check out this cage! It’s big and roomy. I have my own human cook and cleaning lady, too! Clean paper every day. Good seeds, fruits, and veggies. I am a master of the Canary Universe!” he ends with a thrilling leap upward.
Gone is the sleepy little bird who found my activities so fascinating over the winter. This bird is ready to take on the world.
The cat also reminds me that, contrary to what I might want to believe, he is a cat first and my companion second. As Hertz begins testing his voice as the days grow longer, Whit becomes, for lack of a more tasteful description, a pain in the ass. It starts with feline cabin fever. He stalks me and the dogs unmercifully, sneaking up and belting us with a velvet paw no matter how hard we try to foil him. He lies upside down under the edge of the shower curtain and kicks out as I go by, scaring me out of my wits and adding more pinholes to the curtain where the tips of his claws dig in. He gets under couches and chairs and exposes the tip of his tail which he flicks at us seductively. After years of this idiotic set-up, the dogs and I should know not to fall for it because the tail will vanish before we get anywhere near. Nonetheless, we do.
Somewhere in the house, Whit also stores cement cat-sneakers which he pulls out as the days grow longer. As darkness falls, he dons them so that he sounds like a thundering herd stampeding up and down the stairs and through the house as he returns to his nocturnal roots. If I get up in the middle of the night, he’s no longer curled at the foot of my bed. He’s sitting on the wood box next to the window, watching, ever watching. In spite of myself, I look outside, too. I see nothing, but like Whit, I know they’re out there. All the critters, big and small, thinking about territories and mates, edgy with anticipation.
The more domesticated dogs don’t get as carried away as the cat and canary, but they also change. During the winter, they quickly dispatch with the elimination duties associated with that first, early morning trip outdoors. As the days get longer, so does the time they spend finding the perfect spot. The warmer temperatures surely encourage them, but probably not as much as all the scents exposed as the snow melts. Regardless what time we go out, they often spend time standing like statues save for a barely perceptible flaring of nostrils. It’s as if they find all the new scent data so overwhelming, they daren’t inhale, lest they overload.
One glorious evening as we all stood outside together, a pack of coyotes began howling somewhere in the forest above. As if controlled by the same program, the pets and I all froze and stood there listening as the sound drifted down the slope and into the valley below. For me, the feeling was one of oneness with all that is unlike any I’ve ever experienced. At the same time, though, the wildness of it all and the expressions on my animals’ faces made it perfectly clear that we each dwelt in our own unique species world, too. That coyote chorus was taking their minds to places mine could never go.
The feelings at this time of year are so intense and so indescribably pure that I can’t imagine how empty life would be without them. I know that many people live without this experience. But given how fundamental, how primeval the feelings of spring are, I can’t imagine that they don’t miss it.