The Cat Fights

World's most popular pet; cats, eliciting a much stronger love or hate reaction. The unfortunate victim of the tail wagging seems to have inflamed the war of words between the two teams of cat-lovers and cat-haters. To an ailurophile, a cat is a small furry companion with likes, dislikes and idiosyncrasies like any human. Whereas the latter consider it to be a monster, creating mayhem.

The old folks even believed of cats to be witches incarnate. Those superstitions still exist to this day. The staunch cat haters, who choose to ignore the sentience of cats, classifying them as vermin and filth and subjecting them to inhumane treatment, are still living amongst us in the present day even though the tradition of burning cats at the stake of their owners who’d been accused of being witches has died long ago.

C.H.O.W (cat haters of the world) is a group formed for such people. Having an aversion to cats, they exceed their limits. They incur widespread odium for cats. Sentiments of hatred burning inside them make them forget that they are hurting others and it’s just a poor little creature, they stand against. They don't realise how strong is the word Hate. It's okay to not like or love a thing but WHY HATE?

Few common heated remarks of these haters are as follows:
How do you clean their litters? Yuck!
Do they not lick themselves to keep them clean?
Do they eat from your food?
Oh you'll get some kind of disease because they eat mice and lizards.
Do they sleep on your bed/ couch?
Are they always roaming around in the house like this?
Don't you care about their hair falling everywhere? Please keep them out of my sight, they disgust me etc etc.

Just before answering the expressed views and perceptions here goes a list of few famous cat lovers:
٠Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H - (570 - 632), thought dogs unclean, but liked cats. He once cut off the sleeve of his robe to avoid waking a sleeping cat as he rose to pray

٠Sir Winston Churchill - His cat, Jock, shared his master's bed and table. Churchill often sent servants to find Jock and refused to start eating until his cat was present at the table

٠Albert Schweitzer - Sometimes left-handed Schweitzer wrote prescriptions with his right hand, so as not to disturb his cat, Sizi, who liked to fall asleep on his left arm.

٠St. Francis of Assisi - according to an Italian legend, was saved from a plague of mice by a cat which sprang miraculously out of his sleeve.

٠St. Molig of Ireland, according to legend, became disturbed when his pet cat caught a sparrow which had eaten a fly; he restored both bird and insect to life.

I hope this gives you a little hint of how royal cats are and deserve much love and care. Now coming to those who ask such illogical questions are people who do not even for a moment ponder upon the nature and living process of cats. Just like a small baby needs to be taken care of, the mother feeds, diapers and help him grow because he can’t do all this on his own, so what’s wrong with pampering a cat.

Off course they do clean by licking up themselves because God has made a natural process for them of doing so, it’s a natural call and it has to be done in this way, if this way had been filthy God had known better and asked us to keep the cats away from our homes. If the cats' mouth had been so unclean for cleaning themselves and eating rats, Prophet P.B.U.H would never have performed ablution with the same water cats drank from.
                    

Everything was created for a purpose, and if they eat rats or mice, they are fulfilling their purpose. They keep rodents under control, our world would be overrun with rats and mice were it not for cats. They never poke their head inside human food lest we offer them first when they are watching us, if they want to eat it or not. Because it’s the basic manner if someone’s sitting next to you, you always offer them what you are eating. And trust me once you do it they won’t keep bugging you.

Secondly if they roam around or sleep wherever they want to, be it beds or couches; they are free to do as they please. They own the house as much as the other members of the family do because they are family. Kindly when you visit such households where cats exist, do not simply ask us to put them away or throw them out of the house in your presence, because it’s their house, they live here and you don't. You don't deserve to be respected if you don't respect the family.

They are not toys they are living beings they have feelings too and they need space. Believe you me they are more civilized than many of the kids these days, they won’t start jumping around on beds and sofas creating mess and screaming around making it look like a mad house. Mothers even sometimes fail to handle their kids and they get out of control. Do we expect them to start hating their kids? No. In fact help them becoming better by understanding their nature and giving them love and affection.

We should learn to deal with people's differences, and most important is to respect their nature that's unlike us. People often perceive the nature of cats as selfish and mean; while it was deemed to be reserve and timid. Cats are intelligent and independent and they will never lower themselves unlike us humans to try to please, because they are far too dignified to do that.

Wonder why the person who runs away or ignores the cats is the centre of attention for every cat in the vicinity? This isn’t cat's sardonicism or revenge plan for not being liked. Cats lunge towards people who seem to ignore them because of hate or fear, inadvertently sending out the right signals to become an intense focus of cat friendship overtures. They are generous and friendly creatures who instead of scratching and scaring you off, for hating them start being overly nice.

Initially even my family was strictly against the idea of keeping cats. They won’t even go near my cats but then the cats charmed them all with their cute and loving gestures. They are attention seekers and once you fall for them it’s hard to believe that you once hated them. It’s just about giving a chance.

Cats are fussy about etiquette. We should apply the same “rules of politeness” we do in our life while dealing with other people. When we are dealing with people just like us, we know what we like, and we know what to do. But if we are meeting royalty, we would probably need some guidelines. And because we were not born in the cat’s world, so we must learn to speak in Cat.

Those who have reasons to hate cats must be doing something wrong or lacking in giving a little respect maybe because when I started treating my cats the way I would like to be treated by “my giant” my cats respond with great happiness and i turned to love them.

I think its adequate for people to dislike or fear cats, we can’t blame them for their indifference to the creatures we love, as long as they don't hate them and hurt the feelings of those who love and own them. Fear is but natural, even the most famous of people like napoleon and king Henry had fear of cats:

Napoleon Bonaparte - He was once found sweating with fear and lunging wildly with his sword at the tapestry-covered walls. The source of his fear was a small kitten

Henry III - He was like a lion when persecuting the Protestant minority in France, but the presence of a cat turned him into a chicken. He would faint if a cat came near him.

Everybody's got their preferences. You can never force them to like or dislike a thing unless they want to, but people forget to be tolerant towards each other’s choice. Some people don’t like dogs, some don’t like children and so on, but what a much better world this would be if everyone would live and let live and respect each other without any hatred of what others may love.