1There are at least 500 million domesticated cats on earth. More than 100,000 cats are used in classroom dissections every year.
Before I switched to Writing, I had been very determined to be a Biology major in college. I began preparing myself when I became a senior in high school; I took Environmental Education, Advanced Placement Biology, and Anatomy & Physiology as three out of my eight classes for the year. I was not worried about passing, as I was one of those excessively annoying people that didn't even touch my books and still passed with good grades, but I was a little worried about surviving my Anatomy class.
At my high school, dissections were done in basic tenth grade biology when everyone got a fetal pig; later in A&P cats were the subjects of choice. You could sign a waiver to get out of having to do the pig, but it was assumed that if you signed up for Anatomy that you were definitely going to dissect the cat: Otherwise, what was the point of taking the class?
I hadn't enjoyed cutting up the fetal pig. The fumes from the preservative had made me light-headed and nauseous, and there was something indefinable about that naked, pearly-pale, translucent skinned, snouted swine body that made me uncomfortable about cutting it open. I didn't feel a connection between that dead piglet and what was actually happening in my body, and so most of the point of the exercise was lost.
I didn't want to feel the same way about the cat dissection mostly because it was such a major part of the class, but also because I felt I shouldn't be so affected by having to cut something open and look at its guts. I felt I needed to grow-up.
My partner for the project was a spoiled rich girl named Sara Parsons, and I don't know how we managed to meet or get along, but by the time the cats were passed out we were chatting happily and pretty good friends.
"Dave," Sara told me seriously. "I don't care what gender the cat is, I wanna name it Dave."
I shrugged. "Dave the Dead Cat it is."
True Fact #2
Dave is a derivative of David, which means "beloved" in Hebrew.
Well, it turned out that Dave was not only female, but, as we found out much, much later, also a few weeks pregnant. We thought that the dumb luck of us picking male name and getting a girl was great, and rather than change the name, we blamed Dave for daring to be female, and so her title was extended to "the Dead and Confused Cat." This was inscribed on her cute little red toe-tag.
Working opposite of Sara and I were our bench-partners and friends, Amber Mace and Jackie Bell. How quiet, shy, academically aggressive Jackie paired up with smart-mouthed, wisecracking, lackadaisical Amber is also beyond me. They did well together though, and beat Sara and I in our race to see who could skin a cat the fastest.
I found, to my utter delight, that I experienced none of the problems that I had dissecting the pig. Cat anatomy is incredibly similar to that of a human's, and it was easy to visualize the same muscles, bones, and organs that were in Dave in other animals and people. I had brought in a jar of Vicks Vapo-Rub-the stuff you smear on your chest when you have a cold-after watching the autopsy scene in The Silence of the Lambs, and with a quick dab of that under my nose I didn't have a problem with the smell of the preserving fluid. At least not for the first two weeks.
No matter how carefully we rebagged them every day at the end of class, after fourteen days of being sliced and diced, the cats were starting to get pretty ripe, not to mention just plain messy. Every time we handled them, intestine came out, the heart rolled out of the cavity, separated muscles flopped juicily, and the ravaged jaw flapped obscenely. It was like a sick marionette. Dave's full name became "the Dead, Confused, and Infinitely Stinky Cat."
True Fact #3 Cats have 290 bones in their bodies, and 517 muscles.
Sara and I were known in the class for being a little. odd. After we cut open the heart, we didn't know what to do with it so we stuffed it neatly into the ropy coils of intestine. Apparently that was a really weird thing to do; even our biology teacher was a little nonplussed. We also used pins-available to stick different muscles to the dissecting tray- to pierce Dave's ears, nose, and belly button. Dave was a punk kitty.
The final straw, however, came while doing the final examination around the head, when a few extra cuts separated a forelimb from the rest of the body.
True Fact #4 Cats lack clavicles; their front legs are attached to their body only by muscle, ligament, and skin.
I thought this was incredibly cool, and took the naked forelimb around the classroom, waving at people and trying to shake their hands with it.
Poor Dave, sacrificed for science. She brought us so much pleasure, but when it came time to get rid of her smelly, disintegrating corpse, we were only too thrilled. Sara and I hummed a funeral dirge as we slung her into the dumpster.
True Fact #5
The Victorian meaning of a bouquet of Tiger Lilies is "I dare you to love me."
It was that same summer, and my friend Jackie was preparing to get married in August to Shawn Horton. I was one of the bridesmaids, and while I didn't have much to do with the wedding besides being there for both of them, occasionally I was sent off on little helpful tasks. On the day of Jackie's bridal shower, I was sent on such a mission. It was decided that it would be nice if there were some flowers for decorations, and so they sent me off with Shawn, who was making a last-minute trip to the store, with the plans of being dropped off on the side of the road to collect wildflowers. Shawn stopped about three miles from the house and then zoomed off, leaving me standing on the sun and shadow dappled birm of the rural highway with a white plastic bag in hand. I took a deep breath of the clean, cool morning air, and began looking around. It didn't take me long to realize that there weren't any wildflowers blooming in northern Pennsylvania in July-at least not along this stretch of road. There weren't even any dandelions. I kept walking anyway, not knowing when Shawn would return for me, and also not wanting to go back without even a single flower. Something must have caught my eye, for I hopped off of the gravelly side of the road into the two-foot deep ditch that ran alongside it, and began probing at the tall grasses. I realized then that I was standing in the remains of what was once a white-tailed deer. something that was now nothing more than a wreck of bones jagged like bits of broken bottle among the weeds. I paused, thinking of Dave the Dead, Confused, and Infinitely Stinky Cat; Jackie, Amber, Sara, and I huddled over our feline corpses with Vicks Vapo- Rub smeared under our noses. It was just that morning that one of Shawn's family's cows had died, and Jackie and I had discussed dissecting it prior to lunch before deciding that we didn't have enough time. These thoughts ran through my head absently as I began rooting through the entangled grasses, revealing an intact chunk of lumbar as well as several loose vertebrae, a scapula, the jaw bone, and miscellaneous rib and leg bones. I brushed the dirt and greenery off of them, and greedily stuffed them in my white plastic bag. This was far cooler than flowers, and I was sure Jackie would agree. I had found Treasure. It didn't take me long to collect everything I could without having to actually dig, and I started up out of the ditch, incredibly disappointed that I was unable to recover the skull. I took one glance back, however, and I did find it. I had missed it because it wasn't in the ditch but had been dragged up toward the wood line, and sat plain as day elevated above the highway. It reminded me of some primitive marker, guarding this small section of asphalt with its dark, dead eyes. "Alas Yorick!" I cried, and bounded back into the ditch to get it.
Quote #1:
The correct lines are: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio-a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." These are some of the most incorrectly quoted lines from all of Shakespeare's plays.
I was quite proud of myself when I finally began looking for flowers again, and ended up shearing a large clump of vibrant Tiger Lilies of all its blooms for the party. I'm pretty sure that the flowers were part of someone's yard. As they say, all's fair until you get caught. I returned to the bridal shower with a full bag of purloined flowers and scavenged deer. No one knew quite what to say about that, not even Jackie. But she did appreciate the lilies. For the duration of the party, the bag of bones was locked up in Jackie's bedroom, so the other guests couldn't find it and be upset. However, neither Jackie nor I had realized that the sinuses of the skull were filled with of tiny black ants that had, no doubt, contributed to the fact that what I found was a skull and not a rotting piece of meat. By the end of the day, the ants had decided that there was much more food to be had elsewhere and had begun to migrate into Jackie's bed.
Jackie must have truly loved me. No one but a true friend could have understood and forgiven my returning to her bridal shower with a dead deer and infesting her sleeping space with insects.
Quote #2
"Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability." - Cicero
When I first came to college, I was assigned a biology professor to help me plan my schedule and general survive the transition from high school. We would get together in her office and discuss what classes I wanted to talk and what my goals were. She told me once that I would be an excellent scientist because I was able-even willing-to look at an animal and say, "Oh that's so cute! I wonder what its guts look like!"
That's the kind of compliment that sticks with a body.
True Fact #6
Rattus norvegicous, the Norway rat, is the only non-primate species proven to laugh. Rats emit rapid ultrasonic squeaks and trills of about 50 KHz while their bellies are tickled by either a human or another rat, and like our own children, once rats are accustomed to being tickled, they will actively seek it out.
I have learned to love rats during my time at college, and was roped into running a rat breeding program-a rattery, as it's known in the trade- together with the same animal-loving friend that first introduced me to these misunderstood rodents, Kris Shannon. I had never believed all the bad press I'd heard about rats, but I still did not expect to fall in love with them.
Then again, who ever expects to fall in love?
Kris and I have been breeding for almost a full year now under the name Mead Hall Rattery, and we've chosen to work specifically with a marking known as "masked." A masked rat is completely white except for a band of color, any color, crossing its eyes; it is ideally supposed to resembled Zorro. This marking is not very common, partly because it is difficult to achieve, and partly because of breeders phobia of genetic problems-namely a disease called megacolon.
Megacolon is a lethal genetic disorder that causes afflicted animals to lose the natural function of peristalsis; that is, they are unable to move food through their intestines, and die of a combination of malnutrition and constipation. Megacolon occurs not only in rats, but also in horses and cats, and runs its complete course before the animal is sexually mature. In rats, it is rumored to occur most often in "high- white" lines, but no one seems to agree as to what kinds of markings are considered "high-white," and most breeders take the phrase at face value and only breed solid colored animals, or else ones with just a few white patches.
Quote #3
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." So spake Daniel J. Boorstin.
Because of this fanatical fear of megacolon, Kris and I found a wide- open market for breeders of masked rats, which are, of course, considered high-white. We decided that we would keep our eyes wide open and watch closely for megacolon, and if it showed up in our litters, we would stop breeding the lines.
We had two successful masked litters through the fall of 2002, and not a single baby ever showed any sign of illness. Feeling pretty proud of ourselves, I suggested that we breed Jezabelle, a lovely chocolate with a white belly and head-spot, for her charming, people-friendly temperament to get a break from black and white masked babies. Kris agreed, and Jez when in an aquarium with Hanta, an orangey-colored male with white feet.
It came as a bit of a surprise to us that megacolon cropped up in this litter after all of our success with the mostly-white masked.
True Fact #7 The Norway rat has been estimated to have intelligence and memory equal to that of a three-year old human child Quote #4 "Similarities in the pain pathways of human infants and prenatal rat pups have made the prenatal rat pup a useful model for understanding the development of pain pathways and associated mechanisms." - Lab Animal, October 2000 Volume 29 Number 9, page 27
The victim was a little blazed sienna-colored girl, and I had thought that perhaps she wasn't looking quite right as early as her fourth week, but I had pushed the thought out of my mind, not wanting to jump to conclusions. After all, I had never seen a case of megacolon and was even beginning to doubt that it existed.
By her sixth week, the problem was obvious and could no longer be ignored. Smaller than her siblings by nearly a full inch, the sienna was beginning to resemble a heavily pregnant mouse, for what she lacked in length she made up in girth as her intestines became clogged and engorged. Simultaneously, her lack of nutrition was beginning to tell, as her thin scapulae and pelvis were rough ridges just under her skin. There was no point in letting her live any longer.
She was still quite active when Kris and I drove her to the vet's for euthanasia, clambering over the scales and trying to chew on the stethoscope, and investigating everything as rats tend to do. She seemed intrigued by the clear plastic ball she was put into and by the hose that was attached, at least until she got a good whiff of the gas issuing from that hose. She curled up in the bottom and fell asleep in under ten seconds, and Gretchen, the veterinarian, gently shook her out onto the shining silver table. An injection was prepared, and the needle slid between bead-tiny vertebrae to reach directly into her brain.
True Fact #8
Rats' brains are proportionally larger than humans'.
Gretchen turned the little body onto her back and clipped the skin covering the bloated belly with sleek little scissors. Thick-grotesquely thick-earthworm-like intestine spilled out, as large around as me thumb and covered in striations of rose and pale blue, and clear stringy mucus. Gretchen palpated the swollen organ with white-gloved fingers, then pushed it aside and examined the rest of the freshly pink and white body cavity. She pronounced that the abnormal swelling was indeed the result of megacolon, and that otherwise the young rat had been completely healthy.
Completely healthy except for a one-hundred percent lethal genetic disease.
Quote #5
Maurice Maeterlinck once said, "When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough."
It was one of those unlucky time periods. Right before the sienna- colored girl had to be put down, I lost another rat. no, not just another rat. Munch had been an intimate friend, sharing my food and drink and bed, and delighting me with her revelries. She was the main reason I fell in love with the species as a whole.
Rats almost never live past four years, and most don't even make it to three. Munch had been diagnosed with a severe heart murmur on one of our emergency runs to Gretchen; her heart was so bad that the weakness could be heard over the respiratory problems that Munch had been rushed to the vets' for.
At first, this news was merely interesting, not worrisome. Then I started watching her die by inches over a two-month period, and I knew what it was, and I knew that there wasn't anything "Auntie" Gretchen could do this time.
Every day I would check on her, hold her, and stroke her fur as I sat at my computer. I could feel her struggling to breathe as backed up fluids and blood began to drip into her lungs-a phenomenon known as pulmonary edema. She had difficulty moving on her swollen feet and ankles, and began to just crouch in my lap panting instead of bounding off to play. Her fur fluffed up as she began to neglect grooming herself, and red stains of porphyrin (a red pigment associated with stress and illness) crusted around her eyes like bloody tears.
One night, she was looking especially bad, but after petting her and talking to her for an hour, I placed her back into the cage. I don't know why I did that, when it was so clear that she was in terrible shape. I went to bed about two hours later, but could not go to sleep; I kept thinking about her dying and being all alone. Finally, I decided to wrap her up in a towel and bring her into bed with me, so I got up and turned on the lights.
I was too late by maybe a half an hour. She was not yet cool; her limbs were still flexible, her eyes open and face twisted in a frightening grimace of pain. I held her in my hands and stroked her fur and started sobbing. Why couldn't I have realized she was going to die? Why didn't I keep her with me instead of putting her back in the cage? What kind of person so blatantly ignores the signs of a loved one's immanent death?
I called Kris after a few moments. I didn't know what else to do.
Kris answered the phone blearily, "Hello?"
"I'm a bad mom!" I shrieked back in answer.
Fortunately, Kris quickly figured out what was wrong and assured me that I was not a bad mother, and that there wasn't much I could have done anyway, and that Munch had known how much I loved her.
Most people have a decidedly humanocentric view of grief; that is, if the loved one that passed away wasn't human, you shouldn't grieve-at least not if you're older than five. How could I explain that I didn't want to go to classes or work or supper; my rat had just died? Who would have taken me seriously? But yet, no human could have given me the joy and unswerving companionship and adoration that Munch had, devoting her entirely life to being near me whether sleeping or awake.
True Fact #9
Every living thing dies.
My experiences with death have ranged from disgusting, to educational, to humorous, to personally touching. I have learned many things, but impressed the deepest is that living is hard, dying painful, and death permanent. I have heard that life is a journey, not a destination. If that is true, one can only wonder what the destination actually is then.
Quote #6
"Life is eternal, and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." -Anonymous