Gendered animals

I was thinking about my own writing on our visit to the zoo, and a fellow blogger's post that included some discussion of cities and gender, and I started to wonder about my choices to always refer, during the italic sections that represent comments, to the animals as 'he'.   Some objects  seem to just shout that they're female rather than male. (Who doesn't know someone who has given their mode of transportation some awful name like 'Bluebell' or 'Lucy', and who wouldn't say some places  -- lots of countries, I think - France, Canada, even the U.S., for me...'lady liberty' and all... -- are just female). But what about animals?  People tend to refer, it seems to me, to almost all animals (even prissy cats and flouncy poodles), as 'he'.  The fact that female-ness seems to fall into deviance aside, it's interesting that we are bound and determined to associate a sex with animals (I suppose they don't have a 'gender'), but often don't seem to make an effort to know which sex is the right one.     

Two stories come to mind: I used to cat sit for a nice family up the street from me when I was a teenager, and the mother of the family, who always used to give me the same orientation of the house (this is where the food is, this is where the litter box is, this is the scoop to clean the litter box, etc.), referred to the cat as a 'he'.  Naturally, when I arrived to do the necessary duties, I continued to think of the cat as a he.  But, as we got more used to each other, and as I gradually bent down to rub the cat's head, then back, then belly, the cat was very clearly NOT a he.  HE had teats.  Prominent ones.  And absolutely no...boy bits.  I thought maybe my lack of biological knowledge (see last post) had caught up with me, but a talk with the woman's daughter, who showed up unexpectedly one night, confirmed that the little thing was indeed a female.  Now, as a pet owner and an attentive, caring, and also intelligent woman, Mrs. Neighbor must have known, somewhere deep down, that he was a she.  I can't imagine the embarrassing situations that might have ensued, otherwise, at a new vet.  She must have been told at some point that the cat was a she (her own daughter knew it).  So, why the insistence?    

   

The other scene actually took place at the zoo: We were standing by the hippos at one point in the day, waiting for them to rise to the surface, when a fellow zoo-goer came up next to us, examined the still surface of the water, and then read the sign introducing the animals very carefully while waiting to catch a glimpse.  The sign very clearly said the zoo had two females.  I saw her read it.  She practically went over the whole thing with her finger.  Yet, when one of the animals finally broke the water's surface with her enormous back, she bellowed: Look how BIG he is!    Is it just inattention?  Or is it really something pressing in people, making them think that hippos are big and powerful, so they always must be a 'he'?  To me, an animal is imbued with something of real gender when we know their sex - I think a good deal of pet owners would agree.  This probably really is imagined.  My mother's dog is no more boy than those hippos are girls.  But I can't help but feeling like there is something (call it respectful in human terms), real or imagined, to knowing.