With 24 people already killed in Iranian aerial attacks and headlines warning of Tehran’s advancing uranium enrichment, fear is an entirely natural response. The news may overwhelm some with anxiety, but it also offers context, guidance, and some sense of understanding. Our pets, however, do not have that luxury.
How do they perceive the sirens, the booms of interceptions, and the sounds upon impact, without having any way of making sense of it all?
For Magda Gonzalez’s cat, Anani Arigato, it was simply too much. Just three and a half years old and in good health, if slightly overweight, Anani was found lifeless two nights ago, shortly after Gonzalez returned home from the shelter.
The pair fell asleep together, and everything seemed okay until Gonzalez woke up a few hours later to find Anani unresponsive.
To Gonzalez, who has previously shared her immigration story with The Jerusalem Post, Anani was not just a pet – he was family. Her 19-year-old cat had died just before her move to Israel, and when she and her son Isaac saw Anani listed for adoption in Jerusalem, they were convinced it was the soul of their old cat reborn.
Gonzalez had initially tried to bring Anani with her to the shelter, but he resisted being put in a carrier and wailed nonstop once downstairs. Some neighbors were not thrilled by his presence either.
With only minutes to secure her family’s safety, and trusting in the toughness and independence cats are known for, Gonzalez knew it would be kinder to allow Anani to wait in the apartment instead of putting him through the stressful and cramped conditions of the shelter.
“He just couldn’t take it,” Gonzalez said, crying. Coming to Israel with only a handful of pre-established connections, her bond with her pets is unique, crafted from hours of love and care.
His loss has deeply shaken the family, including their dog, who continues to search for her missing friend. The grief has been especially hard to bear, coming so soon after the death of Gonzalez’s father.
Isaac, 12, wrote a goodbye letter for Anani, which Magda kindly translated from Spanish.
“To Anani: Anani, my precious cat. It’s been a painful time for all of us since the day you left. When I found out that you were leaving us, I cried my eyes out and fell into depression. Sol, your dog, has been sad because she has not heard from you again.
“Because of how you left and the way you left us, I did not have the opportunity to remind you that we have a deal for you to come back to us again in the form of another cat.
“I hope you remember it so we can meet again and adopt you again. But this time, before you enter another body to join us again, please wait a while until the war is over. Your departure has hurt me a lot, and we all miss you very much. I hope you can read this letter.
Love, Isaac.”
Gonzalez and her son now refuse to leave Sol alone, fearing that they will lose her too. Anani’s death has also shaken Gonzalez’s local pet community, she said.
Upon learning of Anani’s fate, they are now at a loss as to what to do regarding their own cats – stress their felines out as they spend precious time trying to catch them, or leave them home alone and risk never seeing them again?
Beyond the animals she keeps in her home, Gonzalez has noticed changes in the street cats she cares for. Many are looking thinner than they had a week ago, and some are missing the kittens they were spotted nursing only a week prior.
Personality changes in pets
For Michal’s seven-year-old dog Bounty, the nightly bombings have created a fundamental change in her beloved pet’s personality and behavior.
Once a voracious eater, Bounty now has little interest in dog food and has become exceptionally clingy. She also no longer begs for walks like she used to.
Despite the personality changes, Michael said that she thinks it is not the sound of the attacks that scares her canine, but her dog sensing her tension. When the sirens blare, Bounty is eager to go to the mamad (a reinforced room inside one’s residence designated to provide a safe zone to shelter in during rocket fire, in particular), where high-value treats await.
While Bounty enters the protected space without issue, her feline siblings Shaool and Sasha refuse to. Shaool, 15, is mostly apathetic to the war and is fairly content being left to his own devices.
However, 13-year-old Sasha has become increasingly agitated and begun refusing food – a well-documented sign of stress, anxiety, and/or fear.
Michal said that she felt terrible knowing that her cats were outside the protected walls, but that it was “too stressful” for both herself and the felines to try and get them inside the room on time.
Adding that many of the attacks have occurred in the early hours of the morning, she said that she is often caught off guard, which makes it difficult for her to grab them.
A life-saver during missile attacks
While pet owners may be experiencing a variety of challenges and potentially having to make life-or-death decisions in the face of the Israel-Iran war, some have surprisingly found their furry companions to be lifesavers.
Former Post breaking news desk editor Eyal Green shared that five-year-old Cathulhu provided unexpected support by waking him up during sirens.
“As a deaf person, one issue I face these nights is waking up from the rocket sirens. But thanks to my precious fluffball of a menace, this is becoming less of an issue,” Green said.
“Cathulhu developed this habit of jumping on me when there are rocket sirens. It’s not because he actually understands that I should wake up; I think he’s just confused by what’s going on,” Green continued. “It’s a cute, yet unreliable waking-up system for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.”
To stay or to go?: Without shelters, what do pet parents do?
The Post’s Shir Perets shared that to keep her beloved eight-month-old kitten safe, she decided to temporarily leave her Jerusalem apartment to stay with her parents, who have a mamad.
“We’ve downgraded from an apartment to my childhood bedroom,” she said jokingly.
Her beloved cat, Bear, initially struggled with the adjustment, crying all night out of fear of the new environment, the blare of the sirens, and the sound of the phone alerts for the IDF Home Front Command.
“I had to stay up hugging him and watching bird videos to calm him down,” Perets said. “What we’re doing to get through it is simply just our best. I’ve spent [almost] every second by his side so he can see that the scenery may have changed, but that I’m still here.”
“I’ve kept a few things from home in his carrier so that during sirens he can curl up with an old shirt for comfort,” Perets continued. “I’m talking to him, even if he can’t understand what’s going on.”
She added, “Maintaining a calming tone can help show him that everything is okay. [I am] giving him his space when he needs it. Yes, it’s a small space, but when he hides under the bed, I don’t try to lure him out. He comes when he’s ready.”
Perets is trying to maintain “a semblance of normalcy” despite the strained circumstances, which are particularly difficult as she is an army reservist and she works for the Post.
Meanwhile, Perets upgraded Bear’s food so that he would begin to associate her parents’ home with the gourmet dishes he now gets to enjoy.
While her parents’ home has been a safety net for her and Bear, Perets’ mother said, “I hate animals... I really don’t want the animal in my house... But I love my daughter.”
Perets added, “You understand why you’ve maybe moved location or why you’re running to a shelter. [Pets] don’t know what’s going on. Show them grace and kindness. They take their cues from you, so the best way to keep them calm is to keep yourself calm.”
Maya Zanger-Nadis, a former Post breaking news desk manager, shared similar struggles.
She lives on the top floor of an apartment building without a shelter and with multiple cats that would be less than compliant if she tried to get them into a carrier during a siren.
Describing the situation as a “crisis,” Zanger-Nadis said that she found a way to shelter, but her cats would not get in a crate, and taking them by hand carries too many risks.
She was informed by a friend that a vet had told them that moving an unwilling cat caused too much stress to justify the attempt, regardless of the circumstances.
According to that vet, cats are survivors. They tend to find hiding spots in fairly protected places.
While Zanger-Nadis was invited to stay at her partner’s home, his mother is not a fan of cats, and so she has elected to remain in her apartment to preserve her relationship with his family and continue to care for her cats.
Advice from a professional: Surviving Tehran with pets
According to Oren Addar, the director of HaLobby Lema’an Ba’ali-Ha’haim-Rosh Ha’ayin (a union that engages in animal rights) and an engineering officer at an IDF rescue unit, pet owners needed to know that legally, they have the right to bring their pets to any shelter, whether it is privately or publicly owned.
Dog owners may be asked to have their dogs leashed and muzzled, and cats need to be kept in travel boxes.
Addar referenced a recent story published by the N12 news site in which a woman was physically assaulted for bringing her dog into a public shelter.
He said that this kind of behavior was unacceptable and that the country needed to take this as an opportunity to come together by following Home Front Command directives and displaying compassion, as lives could be saved.
“We need communities to take responsibility for the pets of the owners who are wounded or die from impacts,” Addar said. “In some cases, animals escape impacted homes, and efforts need to be made by the local community to reunite them.”
Separately, a Home Front Command official told the Post that recently, during efforts to rescue those buried under the rubble in an apartment hit by an Iranian missile, a cat was successfully saved and reunited with its owners.
The owners also had a dog who ran from the building and was later recovered safe and sound. Both owners had been transferred to the hospital for medical treatment following the impact.
A soldier involved in the rescue said that the cat was “terrified” and the rescue team had to “earn his trust” before being able to pull him from the rubble.