In Defense of Cats

One phenomena I will never understand is why so many people have such negative views of cats. Most people are loathe to pick on dogs, while they are perfectly content to tell tales about this or that bad experience with felines. Never mind that for all the good pooches in the world, there are also plenty who do annoying things such as bark their heads off. Constantly. Even as I write this.

Sloane Crosley comments about this odd anti-cat attitude in a New York Times opinion piece. She hits a lot of good points most cat owners will surely be able to sympathize with. Crosley notes,

Even now, I am a bit hesitant to extol Mabel’s many virtues. And they are many. To wake up with her belly-up and demanding affection is to have your heart explode with the kind of joy that compels some people into a life of large-scale oil painting. Alas, I am loath to cheapen her existence and dignify the city’s anti-cat stance by creating a dog-like defense for her.

Maybe a good start would be for cat owners to start using terms such as “cat-like” as positive descriptors.