Did you celebrate World Cat Day? The organisers said August 8 was intended to be “a full 24 hours of recognition and veneration of one of humanity’s oldest and most beloved pets”. Veneration? That sounds indistinquishable from every other day of the year for most domestic cats.
Of course, not all cats fit the pampered pet stereotype. In this country in particular, there are many street cats with no owners to lavish care on them and instead use their nine lives struggling to find scrap food to eat and to avoid passing traffic.
But the pampered ones repay the love lavished on them, with researchers reporting that cat owners visit the doctor less often and have lower levels of stress (unless, of course, they pet a white cat while wearing black clothing). And where would the internet be without cat videos? In a way, this just shows society has turned full circle. The Egyptians worshipped cats millennia ago, so we are just continuing a tradition thousands of years old.
