I don’t like cats. I don’t like their skulking, their diffidence, their prissiness, their meowing, their fur — in fact, I don’t like any characteristic or quality of cats. Give me slobbering, blundering, shallow, happy-to-see-you dogs any day.
Still, although I despise cats, I don’t wish them or their misguided owners ill. So I was sorry to read that studies are indicating a link between cat ownership and serious mental illness. The causal chain goes something like this. Cat feces contains a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. Cat owners come into contact with the parasite in the feces when they clean litter boxes. The parasite then can cause an infection that may produce schizophrenia and lead to suicide.
It’s bad enough that cat lovers are cursed with wanting to have haughty, secretive, unappreciative creatures living in their homes and having to tend to smelly kitty droppings as a result. It seems grossly unfair that feline fanciers also have to run the risk of going off their rocker, too.
Webner House 