"The charity Cats Protection has warned against the use of harnesses as in, leads because of how they cause cats undue stress by suppressing their flight response and making them feel trapped. I did not know this when I bought a harness for Mackerel, though I worked it out soon enough by her reaction, which was to play dead the second you put her in it."
"Now, I didn't buy a harness without reservations, although rather shallowly it was my personal image that ultimately caused me to ditch it. Here is what I wrote in 2020 (from my book The Year of the Cat, which was all about how I adopted Mackerel during an intense period of maternal broodiness and pandemic-induced isolation): Sometimes I see myself from the outside:"
"The reason I felt bafflement when I read about the one in six cat owners using harnesses is because it made me wonder: just who are all these cooperative, compliant cats that obediently trot down the pavement alongside their humans? I see them on the streets sometimes. It's the same feeling I have whenever I see a photo of a cat wearing a silly little costume: namely, how does its person still have their eyeballs?"
Almost one in six cat owners in the UK use a harness. Cats Protection warns that harnesses, as leads, can cause undue stress by suppressing cats' flight response and making them feel trapped. Personal experience with a cat named Mackerel showed immediate distress: she played dead when placed in a harness. The harness was abandoned partly for reasons of personal image and the cat's resistance. Mackerel exhibits quirky behaviors, such as drinking coffee and watching the film Saltburn. The prevalence of cooperative, lead-walking cats and photos of cats in costumes provokes bafflement and disbelief.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]