Head to Head does pets

This week’s topic: Should cats be allowed to roam free while dogs must be controlled at all times?

Andrew Woodhouse
Cats are from Venus and dogs are from Mars.

People with pet obsessions are often people without friends. In dense, inner-city areas, the elderly and mentally unstable are lonelier, more isolated and crave reciprocal affection. Quite frankly, if a dog, Canis familiaris, or cat, Felis catus, talked they’d say; ‘I’m not going out in this cold’, and ‘It’s 1:01pm – where’s lunch?’, or ‘You wear it:  I refuse to wear that in public!’

Psychologists say pets are companions often provide meaning to peoples’ callow lives. Watch your neighbour closely. Do they talk to pets as if they’re human? Do they disregard others to molly-coddle their moggy?  If so, they may lack sufficient social skills to interact with humans and are transferring affection to pets.

Animals aren’t just pets, they’re innately animal. Dogs demand exercise. They can be aggressive, bark loudly, are territorial, steal food, frighten children, defecate on footpaths, scare native fauna and breed fleas. Their warrior attitude is like the classical god of war, Mars. No wonder young women use them as security. Cats are like Venus, goddess of beauty. They purr and preen a lot, are fussy eaters, assume ownership of things and adore an expensive fur coat – all very female. They’ve been revered in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics since 2000 BC.

The NSW Companion Animals Act does not generally insist on leashing all animals, either cats or dogs. Sections 12 and 13 require dogs to be collared and tagged in public and ‘be under the effective control of some competent person’.  So, if the owner isn’t competent, they’re fined. Legally, the dogs themselves do no wrong it seems. I agree.

Sydney Council is barking mad, giving over its public parks for dogs to roam free and create havoc, especially for mothers and children. Paid professional dog walkers arrive and unleash hundreds of dogs for hours into these dog crèches. This is not ‘competent’ management, and Council should fine itself for breaches of the Act.

Let’s evade all this by relating to real people, or buy a budgie, I say.

Peel me another grape will you?

Peter Whitehead
In one of his picaresque ’70s novels Barry Oakley noted that the Tai Ping Restaurant near St Kilda Junction made the best dim sims in Melbourne [ergo the Southern Hemisphere if not the World]. In the nearby Wesley College boarding house we agreed and gratefully allowed Doog Mills a margin for running hot packets dripping soy sauce for a salty après-Studytime snack. They were sublimely tasty in an exotic way that went beyond the lavish use of monosodium glutamate. No other deep-fried packages had their particular piquancy.

Some years later my curiosity was short-circuited when I read a report in Melbourne’s respected broadsheet, The Age, that Health Inspectors had raided the premises and discovered cat-crammed cages in the backyard of the esteemed Chinese eatery. An upsetting end.

Now, older and with a better-travelled palate that has survived Vietnamese delicacies such as deep-fried fallopian tubes and hairy Arca pieces, unknown unspeakables from roadside diners in the Indian provinces and greasy-spoon cafs in London, I wonder how wrong the custodians of Victoria’s public health may have been.

What are cats good for if not to eat?

Catching rats and mice could be considered useful but, more importantly for the serious cat fancier, it bulks the tabbies up for better eating. Let us pray that delicious Tai Ping recipe is not long-lost.
In the Chinese zodiac 2010 is the year of that big cat the tiger. In honour of this I propose we encourage our Northern trading partner’s creative ways with moggie flavoured morsels and all eat pussy for a year.

Don’t dare baulk at that. Those wretched wee beasties are murderous monsters. Terrorists with Cheshire Cat cheesy grins, purring and preening away the day like overgrown powder-puffs but callous killing machines after dark. Dastardly devourers of our naive native animals.

If you really must have a fluffy companion, house-train a possum, or a bilby or a marsupial mouse, any one of our endangered furry cute littluns – stuff your imported predator of all creatures smaller. [Stuff it in pastry.] Get a pet worth feeding.

Cats are only worth feeding on.