KYOKO MORI IS hooked on Siamese cats. Currently cohabiting with two sleek specimens, the Cambridge novelist has it bad. "I just love that voice, that loud, complaining voice," she coos, referring to the distinctive and sometimes strangled-sounding cry that distinguishes this particular feline breed. "Other people might find that obnoxious, but I love the spunk in that meow!"
Her preference goes beyond the aural charms of the delicate pair sleeping on her sofa. Both Algernon, a brown-tipped seal point, and Ernest, a classic blue point, Mori notes, have the strong personalities she adores, as did their purebred predecessors, Oscar and Dorian. Although both are napping, curled into each other like a classic yin-yang symbol, Ernest is not always so carefree. "He worries," says Mori, who teaches creative writing at Harvard. "If there's any change in the pattern, if I have a house guest or I've been gone all day, he'll walk around all hunched up, trying to figure things out." Algernon, in complementary fashion, has not a care in the world. "No brains, no headaches," says Mori. "He'll just eat a lot and sleep a lot and climb in anyone's lap and purr."
Despite these disparate anxiety levels and their varied colors, the two have more in common with each other than they would with, say, a Maine coon cat. And therein may lie the key to Mori's passion. Both cats, for example, sport the long, lean lines of their breed, a build that the author, who is also a runner, shares. "When I see other people's cats, I think their faces are too large or their necks are too thick," she says. Plus, notes the Japanese-born Mori, "I like that they're Asian."
Scratch any pet owner and you'll find just such reasoning - our strained attempts to explain a wildly emotional response. To some, it's the regal nature of a huge wolfhound that makes one animal irresistible. To others, it's the adorable expression of a cuddly bunny or the prehistoric movements of a tortoise, snake, or lizard. The qualities we seek in the animals we call our own are as varied as human nature. The only thing they have in common may be what they say about us.
REMEMBER THE OLD saw that people come to look like their pets? The truth, say experts, may be more basic, rooted in the kind of identification that Mori clearly shares with her slim Asian kitties. This doesn't always follow our pet's appearance: we don't necessarily see ourselves with the Churchillian jowls of a bulldog or even in our cats' sleek coats. But in some ways we want our pet to mirror us - or at least reflect particular traits we wish we had. My puppy, myself, you could say - except that we have a lot more leeway in choosing our pets than we often do in deciding on our looks, our talents, or our heritage.
It's a wishful-thinking kind of identification, and it isn't always positive. In her book Adam's Task (Random House, 1986), philosopher and pet writer Vicki Hearne describes this process as something beyond anthropomorphism. "It is attributing to animals, not traits that we possess," she writes, "but traits that we wish we possessed, or are afraid that we possess or that someone possesses." In terms of practical application, we choose an animal that makes us look good. "There is something about that pet that reflects a quality of ourselves that we like," says Myrna Milani, a New Hampshire-based veterinary ethologist and the author of CatSmart (NTC/Contemporary Publishing, 1998). "It makes us feel good about ourselves. If someone sees cats as mysterious and they want to be considered mysterious, for example, they'll gravitate toward a cat."
I purr, therefore I am. Or, in some cases, the direct opposite, as when we pick a pet that complements or fulfills some vision of who we are. Newton-based writer Vicki Croke, for example, describes herself as "terrier-like. Tenacious, yappy, high-strung." The petite brunette, who writes the "Animal Beat" column for the Boston Globe, is indeed quick, verbal, and full of energy (she's now working on her third full-length book). Her pets of choice, however, have long been Irish wolfhounds: huge, calm hunting dogs covered with long, light hair.
"They have such a calming presence," she explains, describing the dun-colored dogs that can weigh in at 140 pounds. For Croke, the dogs' size and the obvious contrast they provide when striding beside her are both pluses: "They look you right in the eye," she says. "Plus, I like that laid-back, tall blonde beside me."
FOR CROKE, opposites hold the attraction; for Mori, similarity drives the choice of animal companion. So if either extreme applies, are there any constants in the pet world? Many would like to know: with millions of dollars at stake, the whys and wherefores of pet choice have become a huge business. According to the most recent survey conducted by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA), 62 percent of all US households have at least one pet, an all-time high, and those households spend at least $750 million on food, care, and treats annually, according to the American Animal Hospital Association. These and similar groups publish reports that examine every conceivable aspect of the pet-person relationship, finding (for example) that dog owners by and large bond with their pets through play, while cat owners connect through grooming. They compile the numbers on which pets are valued for their silence (reptiles, even more than fish) and which because they are fun to watch (birds, closely followed by cats and dogs). Any trivia you can dream up they've tracked down, all in the name of understanding - and marketing to - this huge and growing group of consumers.
A century or so ago, the choices were simpler. Boys were composed of "snips and snails and puppy-dog tails." Girls (and women) were associated with kittens or cats, a gender typing that was evident as early as the 19th century, according to MIT historian Harriet Ritvo. These days, even these loose stereotypes are beginning to slip. We still identify dogs with masculine traits and cats with feminine ones, but we're allowing some cross-gender petting. In a 1996 study, for example, a group of students were shown pictures of men and women with both cats and dogs. The students rated the women shown with dogs as more confident, professional, and active - more traditionally masculine, in other words - than the women depicted with cats. Men with cats, on the other hand, were viewed as warmer, gentler, and more loving - more traditionally feminine, that is - than their canine-partnered counterparts. The researchers (who published in the journal Anthrozoos) concluded that the gender-associated trait went with the pet. When a follow-up study was published in the same journal in 1998, more women than men were still reporting themselves as "cat people" (65 percent), although actual distribution of dogs and cats was roughly equal, which also fits the trend of the APPMA surveys.
Dive into the research and get as detailed as you want to: are bird owners more outgoing? Turtle owners "hard-working and reliable," like their animals? Yes, concluded Aline and Robert Kidd and Helen Kelley of the American Psychological Association. Their 1983 study of adjectives chosen by 14- to 74-year-old pet owners to describe themselves is just one of hundreds that link up various personalities with different animals. But keep in mind that these psychological suppositions are descriptive, not prescriptive: bringing home a budgie won't necessarily make you more social than you already are, and tortoise fans aren't inevitably any harder-working than the rest of us. They just see themselves that way.
