Рита Браун: Animal Magnetism

Mother was a keen observer of nature, and thanks to her example, I was fascinated by the behavior of animals. Clearly cats, dogs, and horses didn’t mate for life. But geese seemed to be quite faithful, and I noticed that the foxes stuck together until the cubs left, which in Maryland and Virginia is usually late October. Then the male might leave the den or he might not.

Watching foxes as a child, I also learned that the breeding cycle was tied to the food supply. I couldn’t figure out how they knew what the food supply would be when the cubs were born and growing. Here in central Virginia, foxes typically breed in early January. Usually those are the grays; they start before the reds. The reds come courting late January and February. How do they know? We sure don’t. We can develop the most sophisticated weather instruments and we make many predictions: we are inaccurate. But the fox knows.

I’d talk about these things with Mother. She never said I was foolish or that I pestered her with stupid questions. She loved nature. My curiosity and study delighted her. A good thing, too, because I wasn’t turning into the kind of daughter she had envisioned, which is to say a smaller model of herself: a femme fatale. However, we shared enough that we could spend time happily together. Her view of foxes was we would never understand them because we (meaning science at that time) considered them vermin. Vermin don’t rate study or government grants. Everything I know about foxes I have learned from Mother, PopPop, or my own observation.

The monogamy issue puzzled me. I noticed over the years that some dog foxes (that is, the males) would leave the den when the cubs did. But they would return to the female for breeding season. There was a bond between some of them. The boys would leave, but the half-grown girls often stayed close, building dens near the parent couple. I’d eagerly give Mother the news about this. I built little scent stations to count the paw prints. Often you can distinguish between paws and thereby get an idea of how many foxes crossed your station. All it takes is a two-foot square of sand or dirt smoothed out. You pour fox urine on it. Most hunting/outdoor stores carry small bottles of it. Deer hunters use it to mask human scent from deer. What an unwise move if the foxhounds are running. I saw this nearly ruin a hunt once. The poor foxhounds thought, “My, what a queer fox.” The human thought, “Oh, shit.”

Every day, come back to the scent station, count the prints, smooth it out, refresh the odor. I’d do this at the end of October when the cubs, especially the males, usually disperse. Latitude determines dispersement. If you are in Genesee Valley Hunt territory outside of Rochester, New York, probably you’d do this earlier. If you’re hunt staff for Misty Morning Hounds in Gainesville, Florida, you’d probably make the station much later.

When mating season came, I’d bundle up and watch. Some males, mostly young ones, couldn’t find a female or were chased off by a bigger male. Foxes, like dogs, have identifiable features. You can often tell them apart. The next year, that former young fellow would be bigger, and sure enough, he’d find a girlfriend. I asked Mother if they loved each other. She thought about this and declared she expected they loved each other better than some human pairs, probably not as much as others.

Foxes, like cats, are not herd or pack animals. But they have a family feeling. I liked watching the family grow.

As I was coming to grips with mating, I started looking at humans. Men lowered their voices, women raised theirs. Men pushed their shoulders back. A woman often dropped a shoulder slightly in the presence of a male she found attractive so as to make him seem taller. This fascinated me as much as watching foxes. Once you know what to look for, who is attracted to whom is glaringly obvious. And, as in all the higher vertebrates, the woman controls the deal.

Poor men. So many of them can’t read the signs, continually running into walls and becoming, I’m sure, frustrated and sad. Women don’t like high-pitched voices in men. Nor do they like men who cut them off physically. By this I mean (this usually happens in the teenage years, as the boys get smarter over time, most of them), a young man will put his arm against a wall thereby preventing a woman moving past it. Girls flat-out hate it. The other thing girls hate is when a young man thrusts his pelvis forward. I’m not sure this is a conscious action. It’s obvious what it means and it’s mating behavior. But women, often being better socialized than men (under more physical scrutiny), are appalled. It’s just too damned obvious. I’d run back to Mother with my latest observation to be greeted with peals of laughter. I also noticed that boys become loud to attract female attention. It sure does attract attention, but not always in a positive manner.

The foxes were more subtle than the humans. The horses weren’t. An older or tougher horse would chase a young one away if people were foolish enough to leave an intact male or males in with females. The female can and will break a stallion’s leg if she’s so inclined. Once again the male pays, and this time with his life.

Sometimes a stallion will bite a female on the neck and savage her, but if she can lash out she will. They should never be left together. Equine breeding should be monitored and controlled as a kindness. Fox courtship and mating seemed more affectionate than the equine variety.

With the passage of decades, I have come to the conclusion that many men can’t read women at all, whereas women can almost always read men. And while my mother may have been a heretic to monogamy, she’d grumble if a married man was stupid enough to tip his hand. She could always tell, and now I could, too.

She’d point out to me what our neighbor Earl was doing and why his wife was blind as a bat. I’d reply maybe she didn’t want to know. Mother gave me points for that insight. Life is easier if you deny painful things, at least for a time. Small wonder that drink, drugs, and various obsessions gain such control over us.

I noticed, especially among the horses, that mares would become devoted to one another, geldings, too. Mother’s response to this was, “Love who you will but marry and produce children.” She understood the human animal. Love is the wild card of existence.

As I pondered monogamy I ran smack into racism via separate fountains, motels, bus seats. As to most children of any race, it was confusing and very unsettling. At least I had the advantage of being Caucasian, so I wasn’t thrown to the back of the bus, but I became upset that others were. I said to Mother that it was stupid and she agreed but she also said she didn’t know how to change it. Then she said something that once again brought me back to animals: “Honey, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.”

Many years later, her Chesterfield stapled to her lips, red with her favorite lipstick, I mentioned to her what I learned from foxes and her.

I said, “I’ve come to the conclusion that monogamy is contrary to nature but necessary for the greater social good.”

She took a deep drag, her big poodle at her feet, laughed, and replied, “Aren’t you the smartypants?”

Peaches, the house clown.

Every Animal Has a Gift

M other told me every animal has a gift, and that gift keeps it alive. I could easily see a cat’s gifts. There are so many: a cat can turn on a dime and give you a nickel’s change. Their eyesight is much better than ours as are their hearing and sense of smell. Add to this the fact that cats don’t give a damn. They’ll do as they please.

The sheer athletic ability of a feline is astonishing. Foxes display much the same agility, although they can’t jump quite as high as cats. At least, I’ve never seen one do so. But I’ve seen them jump straight up and twist over backwards to land on their feet. Impressive.