Catios: Cats as Mental Illness
Written by Brett, Posted in General & Random
Though it has nothing to do with cars, Glee, gays or any of my other usual topics (well, it’s peripherally related to lesbianism), I couldn’t resist commenting on a piece in today’s NY Times about catios. What are catios? Well, they’re little outdoor areas, frequently urban outdoor areas like apartment balconies, that have been enclosed with chain link, chicken wire or some other feline-impermeable material. Why? Sheer craziness! I’ve long held a theory that ownership of more than two cats qualifies as a mental illness, and if you read the article, you’ll note that all of the catio builders featured therein have at least three, and as many as seven felines. I rest my case!
I have three reactions to this “trend”. First, if you fear that your cat is inclined to jump off a ten story balcony and into the streets of Greenwich Village–as one of the owners cites as inducement to enclosing her once lovely outdoor space with a jerry-rigged assemblage of deer mesh and “Oriental” garden statuary–the animal is probably not suited to city (or any form of) life, so building a cage will ultimately not help it (or you.) Second, this futile desire to try and control for every potentially injurious situation that may confront an allegedly helpless being (and the correlative feelings of power, primacy, and panic it imbues in the guardian) is akin to extremely counterproductive contemporary parenting practices such as not allowing kids to venture outside for fear they will be immediately abducted or run over, and/or making them wear so much protective gear when they are allowed out from in front of the Wii that they are debilitated and denied any experience of what used to be known as “fun.” It is basically poor stewardship. Finally, these fenced-in structures are hideously ugly, and adding ugliness to your abode is not something I–or any of the gay pets that are forced to live in such eyesores (and statistics, and The NY Times itself suggests they exist)–can ever abide. I would like to note, however, that the Habitrail-style catio (pictured above) built by a pair of lesbians in Toronto, is kind of awe inspring, in a creepy house-with-far-too-many-Christmas-decorations-in-the-yard kind of way.
[Photo Credit: Steve Payne/NYT]
So I think you should start these articles or at least end them with some self-disclosure. Don’t you think your readers need to know that you are allergic to cats and that you want the total cat population reduced? Especially in your urban settings!?
Thats quite a poor article with No knowledge of cats at all.I m the happy insain mentally ill owner of 11 cats and 7 dogs.Cause the dogs are hunters my cats a a Catio and they just LOVE laying around in the sun and climbing the trees and sitting in the gras.AND I keep them safe from the hunters! So..why not giving you cat a little piece of paradise and still keep them save from the dangers of the outside-world?i just hope your other topics are not so negativ coloured..