Perusing the dark and dank corners of eBay's modern furniture categories, I noticed a strange trend. In picture after picture, in addition to the Eames chair or George Nelson side table being offered up for sale, there appeared... pets. Cats, dogs, ferrets, birds... Some of the pets seem to have spontaneously wandered into the photographer's frame just as the camera shutter blinked, and others seem to have been deliberately posed with the proffered objects. I thought about this. If the pet's appearance was an accident, why didn't the photographer just reshoot the picture sans Fluffy the Shih-Tzu? In the case of the deliberately posed pets, what purpose could they serve? Perhaps it is a sophisticated sales technique intended to entice potential bidders with a cute kitty. Perhaps the eBay seller thinks of their auction photography as a subtle art, and are using their pet to balance the composition. Whatever the reason, there's something compelling about the juxtaposition, something strange and almost touching, something intimate...

It wasn't long before I began collecting these happenstance (or otherwise) collisions between domestic animals and unwanted furniture. Sometimes the animal is easy to spot; sometimes they lurk at the fringes of the frame. In all cases they suggest a story. I humbly present my collection of: