It’s open season on cats. Last month the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) floated the idea of ‘compulsory containment of cats in vulnerable areas’, and added that in some new housing developments felines could be banned altogether.
The report prompted a deluge of what I am going to call catphobia, for no other reason than that I’ve always wanted to coin a new word. There is an existing word for fear of cats (ailurophobia) but this isn’t that. What’s emerged since the SAWC report was published has, rather, been more like what I might call, if I were woke, a form of anti-cat racism. But that would be silly, and I’m not woke, so I’ll just call it cat hatred.
That cats chose to like you is an honour
Take Zoe Strimpel, in this very magazine: ‘In my view, the SAWC recommendations don’t go nearly far enough in curbing the shocking antics of these loutish and numerous creatures.’
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