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And other unmentionable pet behavior

by Scott McNutt

The gay animal lobby has gotten to our dog. That’s to say, she’s come out of the litter box and started coming on to one of our cats. My wife and I are trying to be supportive of Savannah’s new lifestyle orientation, but it’s difficult. Because, basically, we think she’s out of her walnut-sized brain. And the cat’s not thrilled either.

We are trying to be nonjudgmental. After all, we pet owners all endure indecorous actions from our pets, like the occasional butt-sniffing of other-specied animals, or the constant humping of any available human leg. Such behavior is so common as to seem essentially natural, however unnatural in fact it may be. But this, this is, this is, well, we don’t know what this is. Neither my wife nor I have encountered the like before.

We have Savannah, the lesbian dog, and her recent paramour, Bailey, a formerly homeless feline furball that my wife took in months before we all moved in together. And we have my two cats, Linus and Lucy. All four of them are fixed. None are allowed to go to singles bars or other places where they might learn such forward behavior as Savannah has displayed toward Bailey. By “forward,” I mean.... Well, it would, I suppose, be gauche to describe Savannah’s activities in detail. Let’s just say that our little blonde terrier minx behaves the same way a lot of guy dogs do, but she doesn’t appear to know the difference between heads and tails. And she doesn’t care.

To be sure, Savannah is a fiercely dominant little dog, but in the nine years she lived with my wife before we all became one big happy menagerie, she never showed any such proclivities. Admittedly, she hadn’t been around cats for most of that time. But she also didn’t show her sexual preference when first introduced to Bailey either. Savannah had been around her girlfriend (or victim, depending on how you perceive the situation) for over a year before the, ah, demonstrations of affection began.

It’s possible that our Linus and Lucy have influenced Savannah. Perhaps they passed some literature to her. (And yes, Linus and Lucy are brother and sister. Before I had them fixed, they were guilty of an unnatural union themselves; frankly, if one doesn’t watch nature closely, nature seems to have a heck of a good time with itself and its unnatural acts. But that’s another column.) Again, though, the timing is curious. We’ve all been together in the same household for nine months. Only now has Savannah begun to demonstrate her physical attraction to Bailey.

Bailey accepts the situation with a quiet, albeit puzzled, dignity. When Savannah is “propositioning” her, Bailey keeps her body low but her head high, as if to say, “I am a formerly homeless cat; if this now is my lot in life, then I resign myself to it. The mutt’s finished? Hot damn! I am so-ooo out of here!” After which Bailey and her quiet dignity flee to a strategically inaccessible spot under a chair or table for a couple of hours.

As concerned and loving pet owners, we wish neither to impose our values on Savannah nor to prevent her from getting some safe sex if she truly can. But we can’t ignore Bailey’s obvious discomfort with Savannah’s attentions. And we can’t help but notice, too, that Savannah seems confused by the aftermath of her wooings, as if she’s dimly aware that she can’t get no satisfaction from her efforts no matter how hard she humps.

We’ve told Bailey to “just say no” to Savannah’s advances, and we’ve told Savannah she has to wait until she’s 18 and on her own before she can be sexually active, but Bailey doesn’t understand us and Savannah ignores us. We can’t afford to take her to a doggie psychologist. And she just chews up the inflatable dogs we buy her.

In short, we’re at the end of our few assembled wits. So we’re turning to you, dear readers. Does anybody know what’s going on with our dog, whether our cats are in any danger, and if so, what we should do about it? Because, if Savannah has ulterior purposes and we don’t discover them, then the terrierist has already won.

July 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 30 © 2004 Metro Pulse