IRAQ: The dogs (and cats) of war

People find pets anywhere they can. I learned this a few years ago while on assignment in a remote West African rain forest, where scientists were searching for the source of a deadly virus. I was staying at one of the scientists' homes and went to the bathroom the first morning to brush my teeth, only to find a huge, hairy spider splayed across the mirror over the sink.

Over breakfast, I asked my host if he knew that there was a huge, hairy spider in his bathroom. I assumed he would sweep the beast down the toilet. "Oh, that's our pet!" he said cheerfully.

"Do you think they'd mind if we killed it?" a colleague and fellow arachnophobe whispered to me. I reminded him that it was the family pet and spent the next few days trekking to the house next door to use the facilities.

I thought of the pet spider as our animal-loving Baghdad bureau pondered what to do about getting a pet. We had hoped to bring a cat into our midst, and then we learned that one of our reporters is allergic to cats.

That's how we ended up with Cuddles, a mechanical cat that came with its own bed (but batteries not included) from a toy store in Dubai.

It looks real enough that the allergic staffer recoiled when introduced to it. "That's creepy!" he said as a 9-volt battery sent Cuddles' abdomen slowly rising and falling.

It turns out we're not the only ones in Baghdad with a battery-operated pet. A U.S. Army brigadier general keeps a fake pug in his office.

Unlike Cuddles, who stopped breathing after being poked with a pencil, the general's battery-operated pug continues to thrive in his spot next to a fake fireplace.

Some people are lucky enough to have real pets. At a military base south of Baghdad, soldiers have adopted a green-eyed, brown-and-white puppy. The puppy, now named Roxy, enjoys nonstop attention from passing troops and contractors, as well as treats like Lucky Charms cereal. 

In Baghdad, patience with a pair of feral cats finally paid off for a journalist who tried to tame them with bowls of milk and chunks of chicken and other leftovers from the kitchen.

The pair, informally dubbed Papa Cat and Mama Cat for the legions of kittens they have produced, have settled happily into a life of clambering over the sandbags and around the barbed wire that surround the house. Neither will come close enough to be petted. Still, they're cuter than huge, hairy spiders.

— Tina Susman in Baghdad

Photos: From top, Cuddles the battery-operated cat; Roxy, the adopted war dog; Papa Cat lurks behind barbed wire; Mama Cat lounges on sandbags. Credit: Tina Susman