Dislike of cats (and other animals)

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I know, I know, the history of cats being allied with the devil...sucking the breath from babies and all that other superstious blather from the middle ages....

I wondering why today some people have this immediate intense dislike of felines.

More importantly, why do people feel they can so openly express this dislike, when they wouldn't dream of doing so about another animal?

It's like this....I'm not really a dog person, but I don't have anything against them as a whole. I realize different breeds, and individuals have different personalties. Some are mean, some are great.

Even if I Really didn't like dogs, if someone said "I have a dog" I wouldn't respond "Oh, I hate dogs" and get a disgusted look on my face, without even being asked for input.

I've met a lot of people who have done just that, when cats are even mentioned in conversation. As in "look at that cat over there"

"oh, I hate cats"

Me? I really don't like monkeys, apes and birds, because I believe they are very dirty. Don't like them in that I wouldn't want to hold one for fear of getting it's shitty monkey hands or bird feet on me. I've never volunteered that in conversation however, unless it specifically came up.

If you're a cat hater, I really don't care to convince you otherwise....but I'm curious.....Why? and why is it ok to publically hate them without being asked about it?

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Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 3,080 • Replies: 11

[+5] - patiodog - 10/19/2008I hate kids, but I don't say this to parents. I wait until they're out of the room, and tell the children.

View best answer, chosen by chai2

Well since I'm a cat lover, I can only view this from your side of the fence Chai, but I think it is a cultural conditioning. Those who have been taught that cats are inferior or unattractive view them that way. A bit of that has to do with allergies too as some people are allergic to cats but less so with dogs.

It has been my experience, however, that no intelligent man or woman, no matter how anti-cat, has not yielded to the cat mystique once they have been loved by a smart cat. I've seen it happen again and again.

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I hate kids, but I don't say this to parents.

I wait until they're out of the room, and tell the children.

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@Foxfyre,

I used to hate cats. I love my cats now. Weird. I think though it's more about the fact that they're low maintenance and I'm a self centered asshole.

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@Foxfyre,

A bit of that has to do with allergies too as some people are allergic to cats but less so with dogs.

Ha!
That reminds me foxy...

Last month we were visiting friends in NY state.
"Jim" is the father of our next door neighbor, we got to know him while he was building the house for his son & daughter-in-law.

The DIL is nice enough, but is on the high maintenance side. She claims "allergies" to cats. She volunteered this information because the outdoor cats of the neighbors 1 house over hang out on our patio, steps, garden all the time, and use her front yard as a through way.

Jim, who practically adopted one of the cats while he was here, rolled his eyes when this came up in conversation.

He said he took his cat buddy Buford and rubbed the DIL's pillow all over him, and put it back on her side of the bed.

DIL slept on it that night, and several nights after, and there was never a complaint.

I think most of the time that allergy thing is BS.

1 Reply

@patiodog,

patiodog wrote:

I hate kids, but I don't say this to parents.

I wait until they're out of the room, and tell the children.

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@chai2,

Huh, I'm wildly allergic to cats..
and am very fond of them. I've lived with cats for years in the past because I've loved them. Sneeze me a river...
Yes, I've had desensitization shots, slightly helpful, but not very much.
Not only do I sneeze up a storm, but the reaction progresses to asthma.

I know you didn't say that all people's cat allergies are bs, Chai, but it's another kind of scorn to be so dismissive of cat allergy because of one neighbor.

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@ossobuco,

I'm talking about the one's where it's really obvious they don't like cats, and just use "allergy" as some bs excuse. Pretty much anyone can see right through that.

It's not because of one neighbor.

The question I'm wondering about is why, for instance, if someone is going to, let's say, torture an animal, they'll choose a cat more often than something else.

And why is it more or less socially acceptable to say "I hate cats" when no one asked them, when most people wouldn't think to say that about dogs.

People who consider themselves tres PC don't seem to mind saying your choice of pet gives them nightmares.

In addition, if someone goes into anaphylactic shock over something, I take that seriously....I don't take mere sneezes if someone has to be in a cat owners home for a few hours as anything to worry about.

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@chai2,

In 1980, because of my referring to cats affectionately,
I lost the good will of a young lady with whom I had been obsessed since 1958.
She had mentioned an aversion to cats, but I did not take it seriously enuf; ergo . . .

David

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@chai2,

Cats are ambush predators and watching a cat kill a baby bird for example can be uncomforted.

I grow up in a household that view cats as evil birds killers or at least that the view point that I came away with.

In my late 30s my girlfriend move in with her two cats who did not like me and yet somehow I became a cat lover myself from being around them.

Now the only time I am a cat hater is when one of my girls decided that I had sleep too late and should get up to get her breakfast right now.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

The question I'm wondering about is why, for instance, if someone is going to, let's say, torture an animal, they'll choose a cat more often than something else.

And why is it more or less socially acceptable to say "I hate cats" when no one asked them, when most people wouldn't think to say that about dogs.

People who consider themselves tres PC don't seem to mind saying your choice of pet gives them nightmares.

In addition, if someone goes into anaphylactic shock over something, I take that seriously....I don't take mere sneezes if someone has to be in a cat owners home for a few hours as anything to worry about.

I agree with you completely on the first three of these -

but not the last.

When I used to go into cat allergy tharn - and I still can with some cats, sometimes, though I'm less sensitive now since I am not around them as much and I surmise my response threshold re antigens is higher than it used to be - I would sneeze several hundred times, followed by asthma, and asthma ain't good for ya.

I know asthma is not anaphylaxis, which I'm familiar with having worked in immunology, but it ain't nuttin'.

On the cat hate, the cat torture stuff, I completely don't get it, even though I understand that there has been historic superstition about cats - how can that still be so prevalent? I think it's more than age old superstition, but I don't have any feeling for why some people have such cat-distaste.

For one thing, cats have distinct personalities - fascinating.

One of my favorite pieces of writing is a several page section of Rome and a Villa by Eleanor Clark, written I think in the early fifties. She describes at length a feral cat colony in piazza Vittorio Emmanuele - a centuries old cat colony.

I guess that some of the cat hate comes from people feeling so separate from animals that they don't really have interest in them. Yet, I suppose some cat haters do like dogs. I dunno....

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

It has been my experience, however, that no intelligent man or woman, no matter how anti-cat, has not yielded to the cat mystique once they have been loved by a smart cat. I've seen it happen again and again.

Great, so now you're calling me stupid?

I am ambivalent about cats. Some I like, some I don't. I had a cat years ago who followed me around like a dog would. I wouldn't say, though, that I "yielded to the cat mystique". They're okay and no more. And if they shed, I'm more inclined to not want to be near them. I don't like eating fur or brushing it off everything in sight.

Any animal is too much time and energy for me now - just not interested after having raised children.

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Dislike of cats (and other animals)

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