The Nearburg Bugle


My Theories

By TunyaBiscuit

Like me, you probably wonder many things about CatDog: how do they go to the bathroom? Why do they look like the way they do? Who are their parents? What kind of family do they have? What is their origin? While I can't provide official answers, I can certainly tell you my theories.

About their looks: are they aliens? the result of a government experiment gone wrong? mutants? Here's my answer: yes, they are mutants, but not the kind you'd find in comic books. They are conjoined twins, which is not unheard of in the animal world or the human world. The conjoined twin phenomena is rare, but it happens, and with unusual results.

When normal twins form in the womb, either two eggs from the female are released at once into the uterus, and both are fertilized by the male; or one egg is released and fertilized, and the egg splits in half afterwards. The former phenomena results in fraternal twins (twins that don't look alike), and the latter results in identical twins. When conjoined twins form, either one egg is released and only partially splits in half (this is called "fission"), or two eggs are released and they join together (this is called "fusion"). Conjoined fetuses end up sharing the same developing organs, and when they grow into babies, they are born connected to each other, which can happen in a variety of places.

In Cat and Dog's case, it is possible that two eggs from their mother were released at once, and after their father fertilized the eggs, they fused together, making them not only conjoined, but fraternal, explaining the species difference. Cat and Dog are connected at the hindquarters, but the only definite organs they share are their stomach (as is mentioned many times in the series) and their colon (which was mentioned by Cat in one episode). They have no hind legs, and rely on each other's front legs for locomotion. They also have no visible buttocks, and there is no telling where they defecate from.

As long as we're on the subject, let us deduct how CatDog "goes potty:" since they share the same colon and stomach, it is logical to assume that they share the same intestinal tract and rectum. Therefore, if they need to defecate, they both have to do it at once. As to their bladders, it may be that they are partially separate: in one episode, Dog claims he needs to go to the bathroom, to which Cat replies that he knows for a fact that Dog doesn't; in the Golden Hydrant episode, Dog has to go to the bathroom badly while Cat doesn't have to at all; and in one Lola episode, both brothers wake up with a mutual need to use the bathroom. If they have a partial bladder each, it is safe to assume that they have separate urethrae. In other words, they have separate organs with which to urinate.

However, none of this answers the question as to where CatDog came from to end up the way they are. I don't like to believe that CatDog was a science experiment, nor do I like to believe that they're aliens from another planet, as those two theories only complicate things even more. One thing is definite: if Cat and Dog are from Earth, their biological parents could only be, respectively, a cat and a dog. Somehow, CatDog went from being with their real parents to being deposited outside a cave in Yonderland, where they ended up being adopted by their frog father and monster mother. So what happened in between those times?

Whoever left CatDog outside the cave obviously did so with the full intention of abandoning them. The cave itself is located on a mountain. Whoever abandoned them did so with great care if they bothered to go up to such a height. (Of course, if CatDog really were aliens, a mothership could have simply beamed them down, but I've dismissed that notion.) I believe that CatDog's parents were forced to abandon them in Yonderland, and expected them to (A) die there, or (B) be taken care of by their soon-to-be adoptive parents, who they could have spotted in the cave. (The frog and monster parents don't know where CatDog came from, so it's likely they didn't see CatDog's real parents.) Whether CatDog's real parents abandoned them out of hatred, or loving them too much to have them suffer through life, I cannot say for sure, but they must have been desperate.

But what if CatDog was a government experiment? In real life, cats and dogs cannot have babies. Any other animals that normally don't mate, but are forced to, usually have babies that are physically deformed, mentally deformed, or sterile (meaning they can't have babies). One example is the mule: mules are all sterile, and they are the result of a horse mating with a donkey. However, there is one other main character on the show who have a cat and a dog for parents: Lube! He is obviously deformed mentally, and not physically like CatDog (whether he's sterile or not doesn't matter, and frankly, I don't want to know). Lube is, in a way, a CatDog himself, but he appears to be more dog than cat, which is why the Greasers accept him as a member. Meanwhile, CatDog didn't turn out to be a feline-canine combination in Lube's way-- they were both separate species while they were in the womb. If we take Lube into account, it's likely that there are others like him in the CatDog universe who have parents of different species, and even the most bizarre animal pairings can have offspring. (I doubt all of those offspring are as stupid as Lube, though, so perhaps we can cross out mental deformities as being common.) However, if offspring like Lube and his sister Ellie Mae are common, then the chances of having fraternal conjoined twins with respective species types are phenomenally small! So there could be a chance that someone, whether they had to do with the government or not, could have been fiddling around with gene splicing, and CatDog was the result.

But getting back to my theory; for all we know, CatDog's birth could simply have been a totally natural occurrence. One can imagine this causing quite a public ruckus, maybe even attracting scientists wishing to study this biological miracle. Maybe even government scientists for all we know. Perhaps CatDog's parents abandoned their baby because they couldn't handle all the attention, or they could have done so to save CatDog from being experimented on and treated like a freak. Who knows?

Now that we've discussed why and what CatDog is (and how they go to the bathroom), let's raise the next two questions: when CatDog was picked up by Yonderland's oldest waterspout, Old Uppenchuck, and dropped them off in Nearburg, who took care of them? And what kind of family do they have, if at all? While fans of CatDog tend to believe that Winslow raised CatDog by himself, since he found them when they came to Nearburg, I have a different idea. Cat and Dog may have been adopted by a feline-canine couple, who told them they were adopted at some point. The reason I have this theory is from two CatDog episodes: in the episode where Dog is trying to catch a really tricky mailman, we get to see a flashback of CatDog as KittenPuppy. They have their own little catdog-house, but behind it, there is a larger house shaped like a toy mouse attached to a fire hydrant. Only a cat and dog couple would have a house like that. In another episode, where Cat and Dog are fighting over a trophy they earned, they were supposed to be getting ready for their annual family reunion, and a whole bus-load of their relatives showed up for a while (though we don't see these relatives). My guess is that these people were the blood-relatives of Cat and Dog's adoptive parents. But how do we know for sure if CatDog would know they were adopted? The TV-movie, "The Big Parent Mystery," says it all: CatDog was actively searching for their real parents throughout the entire film.

Still speaking of relatives, here's a strange idea I have: the possibility that Randolph may in fact be related to CatDog! He has the same fur color and spots that CatDog has on his upper body (albeit somewhat murkier, likely due to his older age). His lower body is not his own, as he traded his old butt for a new one at Rancid Rabbit's Better Bottoms. Could his old butt have been a dog?! We get to meet Randolph's parents in the CatDog movie, who look strikingly similar to him, but I'm not certain that this might help my theory. It's simply a detail I like to keep in mind.

So, there you have it, all my theories concerning CatDog. And yes, I do have way too much time on my hands! If anyone is interested in asking me more questions I can answer, simply send them my way at this address. (And I sincerely apologize if I scarred any of you for life.) Thanks for reading!


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"CatDog" and all related entities are copyright Nickelodeon and are created by Peter Hannan; used without permission. Everything else is property of their respective owners. The Amazing CatDog Website is property of Melissa E.M., a.k.a. TunyaBiscuit, 2004 - 2010.