Writers’ pets

I’ve discovered a new form of procrastination, wondering about my favorite authors’ pets. In fact, I just spent about 20 minutes trying to find out if Alexander McCall Smith has a dog. I know he writes about dogs, but then he also writes about cattle. Does that mean there’s a little herd in his back yard?
I’m not the first person to ask about authors’ pets. I found several articles mentioning Charles Dickens’s pet raven, Mark Twain’s cat, and Flannery O’Connor’s peacocks. Have you ever heard a peacock screech? What on earth was she thinking?
It was a surprise to find out that Hemingway was a cat person. I had imagined him as the hunting dog type. But then, Lord Byron’s comfort animal was a tame bear, since dogs weren’t allowed in his college dorm. I imagined that Marcel Proust would have a slow companion like a turtle, but according to rumor, he had a pet haddock. He also wrote letters to his friend Reynaldo Hahn’s dog, Zadig, although I’m not sure the dog wrote back.
As for me, I have both a dog and a cat because I always want the best of both worlds.

the dog and cat join
in a chorus of snores
I write to music