It's a pet's life: The Book of Dog and Cat People are heartening accounts of fur babies and their pet parents

Sultan was my favourite dog while growing up. He was beautiful, a good guard dog, and he saw us off to the bus every morning. And when he passed away, I felt a pang. We have had many dogs since but none like him.

Then I moved out. Shuffling between houses on rent in Mumbai, I did not think about keeping a dog. Seven years ago, my friends and roommates used a darling photo of a chubby lab on Twitter to convince me we needed to adopt her. The dog would be killed if she did not get adopted, I was told. Obviously, I relented.  

Today, Sofie is the biggest part of my life. Sofie behaves like the stereotypical idea of a cat: she does not like too much attention or cuddles, does not lick, jump or show affection, seems quite judgemental of all creatures around her [human or animal>, and likes being by herself. She is no longer chubby. Age has slowed down her limbs. She suffers from epilepsy so she cannot get too excited, which means she is largely homebound. She eats, sleeps, deigns to play sometimes, and completely rules our lives.  

The truth is unless you have had a pet, you will not understand the obsession pet parents have with their fur babies [as some call them.>

It is why these two books — The Book of Dog [Harper Collins> and Cat People [Simon & Schuster India> — matter. In the pages of both books, I found people who laughed at their pets’ silly antics, shed tears when they fell sick, indulged in their every whim, wrote them poetry, and treated them better than they did themselves.  In these books, I found kindred spirits, people who understood.

The world, as most people say, is divided into dog and cat people. I fall firmly in the former category. Beyond the appeal of the core subject of The Book of Dog, it piqued my interest because of the writers. This collection of short stories, edited by Hemali Sodhi, has 45 pieces from writers whose work I have enjoyed reading: Ashok Ferry, Jerry Pinto, translator Arunava Sinha, Nilanjana Roy [whose book on cats is delightful>, Anita Nair, and Gulzar. Each of them writes reverently about their dogs, some using humour [Ferry starts off the anthology with a bang> and others, poetry [Gulzar in fine form>. Sodhi got the idea of putting together this anthology in the lockdown: “It was dogs who kept many of us sane and provided comfort — in a world where everything was uncertain.” It made sense. When India went into unplanned lockdown, and Maharashtra took its time to slowly open up after, it was Sofie who kept us sane.  

My find of the book was a new writer [for me>: Naomi Barton. I held off reading her story ‘Death, Dignity, Dogs’ because of the first word of the title. It ended up being the last story I read, and turned out to be a treat. Barton is funny, honest, and writes with sensitivity. I identified with this paragraph the most: “I wanted someone to stay. I couldn’t stand belonging to someone, and I wanted someone who was all mine. I did not want to be alone. I wanted a friend, not a lover — but more.”  

The visual essays are expectedly beautiful and aww-inspiring. If you have visited Marine Drive, you have met the friendly furries there, and Sooni Taraporevala captures their playfulness well. Divya Dugar, who travels with her dogs and shares their journeys on Instagram, has some candid moments captured from their trips. Devdutt Pattanaik talks about dogs in mythology and shares illustrations too. Flip to the end, and there is another treat in store: pictures of the writers with their pets.  

Cat People does not have too many cat pictures. It is a pity because cats are inherently a photogenic lot, as evidenced by photographer Craig Boehman’s portraits of his cats, Toby and Puchu.    

Cat People first showed up on my Instagram feed. I picked up the book because I was curious to understand the relationship people have with cats, which I knew would mirror the one I have with dogs. Edited by Devapriya Roy, the book also boasts familiar names: Janice Pariat, Meera Ganapathi, Natasha Badhwar, and Nilanjana Roy among them.    

It offers a similar glimpse of parents obsessed with their cats, sometimes to a fault. Saba Imtiaz shares how Smoky, her fluffy cat obsessed with air conditioners, finely chopped sausages and custard. “A cat is more intuitive than a close friends, the ones who couldn’t tell that something had fundamentally broken,” she writes. Varun Grover writes about how living with cats is as ’layered an experience as being in a relationship with an extra-terrestrial being.’ Gurmehar Kaur writes ‘16 Things about Cats [and Boys>,’ including a sober reminder that not all of them are alike #NotAllCats.  

There is a fair mention of dogs too, like in Payal Nagpal’s ‘Dog-Cat,’ where she enumerates on how Spot was nothing like a dog but had feline tendencies: “displaying affection in warped ways.” In ‘Seventy Percent Cat,’ Vangmayi Parakala writes about why she is a dog person but ruminates on how cats remind us of ourselves. “They do everything that we want to do but don’t, can’t, won’t. We want to be loved only when we want to, and we need a partner who understands our love language, and learns to speak it like it’s their mother tongue."

It is not just personal essays but stories too, including a moving one by Sandip Roy about a man who did not like fish and cats, and ends up changing his mind about both.  

Expectedly, because pets show us the beauty of a good life, and also remind us that it is short-lived, there is loss in the book.

These stories have been handled sensitively, and they offer insight into just how much a pet can change a person’s life, no matter how brief their stay. “The nature of loving pets is to know you are going to lose them,” writes Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan in her essay.  

The day the book arrived was the day I bought myself something unnecessary: a 3D wooden brooch of a labrador. It adds to my collection of other unnecessary but cute items, which I use to fill the Sofie-shaped hole in my life when I am away from her: a crochet pendant, a plate painted with dogs, a keyholder, and more.  

As my keyholder reminds me, sometimes all you need is love and a dog [or cat>.

Joanna Lobo  is an independent journalist from Goa, who enjoys writing about food, her Goan heritage, and other things that make her happy. By the side,  she co-owns a food publication: But First, Food and sends out a freelancing newsletter: It’s All Write.