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Science shows how our relationships with companion and other animals can change our lives for the better and influence how we see the world. Along with detailed research in the field called anthrozoology—the study of human-animal relationships—countless stories clearly show that bonding with companion animals, wild neighbors, and other animals can brighten up our days and help us appreciate and respect the animal beings with whom we have different sorts of contact.1
When I received a copy of NPR host Scott Simon’s new book called Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, I immediately thought, “Wow, finally, an easy read about cats, about whom I know quite a bit but always yearn to know more.” However, as I read this well-written and beautifully illustrated book (by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck), I immediately realized that Simon goes way beyond these amazing felines and writes about the joys, worries, love, and humor among a wide variety of animals and how they changed his life for the better, and how he viewed the world.
In this recollection of Simon’s relationships with animals, you’ll meet his family’s dog guiding his child’s first steps, a cat who escaped the British Embassy, street dogs being walked during Sarajevo’s siege, beta fish all named Salman Fishdie, and a cage-escaping hamster Bagel. Here’s what he had to say about his personal journey into the fascinating worlds of highly diverse animals.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known?
Scott Simon: Animals have always been a part of our family’s life. I think the fact that our two daughters are growing up helped me realize and appreciate all the “running mates” we have had along the way: cats, fish, hamsters, and our French poodle, Daisy. Their lives inspired me to fondly remember animals I’ve known in my own growing up, and as a journalist around the world.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
SS: Well, I am a father, a spouse, and a working journalist who has been blessed in my work to travel the world and gain insights from people, from Chicago to Kabul to Sarajevo. Humans have been sharing our lives with animals for 30,000 years. As I suggest in the book, we could use better, wiser terms than “owner” or “fur babies” to describe how animals become a part of our family. I wind up saying “running mates” because they go through every step alongside us—sometimes quite literally. One of our cats, Leona, may have shown our oldest daughter, Elise, how to crawl when Elise first came home with us from an orphanage in China. I have been alongside people in Sarajevo who risked their lives to walk their dogs, and shared their meager relief supplies with them, to keep them going together.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
SS: People who have animals in their lives—and people who may not know how enriched their lives could be with animals, until they may read the stories I get to tell.
MB: What are some topics you consider, and what are some of your major messages?
SS: I try to tell how the embrace of our family has always included animals, from the little orange British cat, Leona (she slipped through a bathroom window of embassy housing, and we agreed to rear her as a British cat), who showed our oldest daughter how to crawl, to our current French poodle, Daisy, who is our companion on long walks and calls forth total strangers into conversation. Their stories remind us how animals can bring us outside of our own shells.
I recount how people in war zones include their animals in their stories of survival. I cast back over the 30,000 or so years in which we humans and animals have shared our lives to show how they reveal themselves in our lives in great works of art, and so many remnants of our shared experience, through testing, tragedies, and celebrations.
And I share questions that those of us who get to know and appreciate animals must ask ourselves about how animals are used in medical research, and remain a part of most diets. Are we at a point in modern life where animals no longer need to be used? Are there ways right now that we can at least reduce the number of animals, be they lab rats or cattle, whose lives are used to advance our own?
MB: How does your work differ from that of others who address some of the same general topics?
SS: I think my approach is that of a storyteller, not a scholar. And as much as I appreciate that scholarship, I hope that in Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, I can communicate in a way that’s conversational and engaging and that will bring readers along on the journey we have had. It is one thing to note that sharing our lives with animals can increase our dopamine and serotonin levels, make us feel less lonely, and aid those who may live with depression, post-traumatic stress, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. But I like to think those points can sink through to us as we tell real-life stories of animals—Daisy, Hoppy, Gato Blanco, Marjan, and more—who become memories and characters in our lives.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about these animals, they will come to appreciate them more and treat them with the respect, dignity, and compassion they deserve?
SS: Yes. You do not have to believe that animals are as intelligent, responsive, or sentient as humans (though each year, science uncovers new evidence that brings us closer) to understand that animals deserve to be treated with due regard for their own magnificence, and the multitude of gifts—companionship, laughter, inspiration–that they bring into our lives, just by being.
