Cats in old-time Phoenix


Because I like dogs so much, most people assume that I don't like cats, and that's simply not true. I have known many remarkable cats in my life, and I've spend a lot of quality time with my feline friends. My relationship with cats is different than with dogs, but cats are different from dogs, and I respect that. With dogs I tend to immediately start flopping ears, but with cats that would just be undignified. I also don't go and pick up cats, something tells me that they resent being treated as if they were a stuffed animal as much as dogs do. And since I'm thinking about cats today, I'm pondering what their life was like in old-time Phoenix.

I found the ad at the top of this post on the Library of Congress site in a Phoenix newspaper from 1918. Of course it's a registered Angora, and that's why it was worth paying for the photo, and the ad. But Fairy Feathers wouldn't have been the only representative of the feline world in Phoenix, I'm sure!

Something that I see when I imagine old-time Phoenix is animals - lots of them. In movies of "the old west" you see horses, and maybe an occasional dog, but I know that there would have been a LOT more animals around. Dogs and cats and chickens and pigs would have been wandering all over the place. People wouldn't have given them a second thought. My neighborhood in Tempe, back in the early 1980s, had dogs and cats that wandered around. I don't recall chickens, or pigs!

When I look at old photos I study them carefully and look for animals. I'm gonna keep looking for cats, but I have a feeling that they didn't hold still long enough for most old-time photos. Even with my cell phone I find it hard to be quick enough to take a photo of a cat, and if I did, mostly all I would get would be the tail running away.

So I wish I could show you more photos of cats in old-time Phoenix, because I know that they were there. And just like today, some are pampered, and some are just out there wandering. It's a cat's life.

Thank you for thinking about cats today in old-time Phoenix!
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