Dorothy Parker was an animal lover and would never abandon a pet

Dorothy Parker

If you aren't familiar with Dorothy Parker, she was known for her razor-sharp wit, caustic epigrams, and contributions to The New Yorker. She was also a poet and one of the prominent members of the Algonquin Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in New York city. She shared the table with notables like Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Harpo Marx, George S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber, Robert E. Sherwood and more. The room is now a restaurant and my wife and I had dinner there several years ago where we also met the resident cat, Hamlet.

I was fortunate enough to have lunch with Dorothy Parker some sixty years ago when she lived in Los Angeles. It was arranged by my friend and book publicity contact, Fred Shroyer, who was literary editor for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. I was late but when I sat down, Ms. Parker had a martini; Fred offered me one. I thought I had arrived, having a martini with Dorothy Parker. Guess the drinks loosened both of us to the extent that when she heard I was from the South, she wanted to talk about racism, one of my favorite subjects.

I told Ms. Parker (she told me to call her Dottie but I just couldn't do it; the celebrity thing with her enormous stature) about my experiences with racism in states I had lived in: Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. Even at the age of nine, when I witnessed a Ku Klux Klan hanging of a Black man, I could not understand why a person's color angered these men in white robes and why they hated him just because he was Black. Ms. Parker was fascinated I had come out of the South, unscathed by racism. We went on for hours.

It was obvious that Ms. Parker had never met anyone from the South who wasn't a racist. I

Dorothy Parker, her husband
Alan Campbell and their dog

am sure you have deduced by now that the famous poet was also anti-racist with considerable passion, and I was eventually to learn she had never traveled to the South, this, accounting for much of her surprise. Before the luncheon ended, Ms. Parker asked me and my wife to have dinner with her and her husband. Unfortunately he died soon after and she returned to New York.

Ms. Parker once rescued a stray dog late at night on Sixth Avenue in New York city. She took the dog home, cleaned it up, and gifted it to a wealthy family on Long Island. She always had an animal around her, and her preference for animals over people was well known...

She famously called dogs "four-legged people-but nicer" and once jokingly remarked that her preference for dogs stemmed from the fact that "they wag their tails at anyone and not their tongues." 

Dorothy Parker would never abandon a pet, yet, around 6.3 million companion animals (mostly dogs and cats) are dumped on U.S. shelters every year. Most are strays, but around 29% are owner-surrendered due to housing constraints, financial hardships, and behavioral issues. Following is a short anecdote of a person surrendering their pet to a kill shelter...

Abandoned pet

This guy walks into the shelter and tells the agent he is leaving his dog. The agent gives him the same tired look and remarks, discouragingly, 'Do you know what we do here?' referring to their euthanasia policy. The guy says, 'I'm sorry, but we're moving and can't take the dog with us.' The agent asks, 'Do you have kids?' The answer, 'Yes.' The agent, 'Are you taking them with you?' followed by a forceful stare. The guy turned around and left without a word.

There is a national crisis with shelters across the U.S. facing capacity problems that are compounded by recent events that have put the American public in a bind, and, of course, it is always the animals that suffer. The excuses are numerous: a landlord that refuses pets, the high cost of caring for an animal, behavioral problems, including aggression or lack of training, moving, as above, and the death or sudden health decline of an owner. Some are obviously unavoidable but many are cruelly needless.

Shakespeare extensively populated his plays with animals to create metaphors, insults and vivid imagery reflecting Elizabethan life. His work highlights a world where humans and animals were closely linked, reflecting that era's intimate, often brutal, relationship with nature. And back to Dorothy Parker who frequently featured pets in her work with her poem, "Verse for a Certain Dog," which blends praise for a pet's loyalty combined with their chaotic behavior.

Ms. Parker no doubt favored dogs but she loved all animals, including cats and horses. The

Dorothy Parker with kitten

phrase "scaredy-cat" was coined by her, first appearing in print in her famous 1933 short story, "The Waltz," first published by the New Yorker in 1933. A Dorothy Parker comment after a night on the town is indicative of her passion for the critters...

"Don’t let me take any horses home with me. It doesn’t matter so much about stray dogs and kittens, but elevator boys get awfully stuffy when you try to bring in a horse. You might just as well know that about me now, Fred. You can always tell that the crash is coming when I start getting tender about Our Dumb Friends. Three highballs, and I think I’m St. Francis of Assisi."

One of the definitions of pet is "something particularly cherished." I hope all of the above has made you think twice if you have any plans to abandon your pet. Let me leave you with something I heard some time ago about an animal dumped at a shelter that was later taken in by a loving couple...

"For someone she was nothing. For us she's everything."

Peace! 

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