Not so long ago I swore never to write about dogs or cats again. It seems like everyone feels compelled to talk about their pets or show us pictures. Even movies.
Young men sneak into the hospital to sleep with the corpse of a famous actress, but she wakes up…
It’s Overloaded: A cat named Frodo steals the show in A Quiet Place: Day One. She faithfully adheres to the post-dystopian rules of silence, even sensing intricate escape routes through the apocalyptic landscape. A mysterious black cat makes an inconvenient appearance in Fly Me to the Moon to disrupt Scarlet Johansson’s elaborate moon landing plan.
And so the tyranny of petdom attacks us from all sides. Few celebrities will consent to being photographed unless they also have a camera-ready pet to cuddle (usually not their own). Politicians have become the exceptions: President Biden’s dog is a serial biter, and Trump’s dog belongs to Nathan’s Famous.
The New York Times devoted a special section to pets last week, and an editor at the Wall Street Journal nearly took up a page in his newspaper to tell the story of his deceased dog.
