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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Breeders
developing
the un-cat
It strikes me that cat lovers love the concept of cats but aren't that thrilled with the actual product.That's why cat owners dating to the era of pharaohs have attempted to breed the cattiness out of felines, attempting to turn them into a soft, cuddly piece of furniture. Some cat owners, unwilling to wait the thousands of years necessary for genetics to do its work, opt for shortcuts. Like, if they have a cat that has a habit of climbing the curtains or carving up chair legs with their claws, they simply have the offensive armaments removed. There's something cruel about declawing a cat, but it does take the smirk off its face.
Now a company called Allerca is developing a new breed of feline that takes away one of the cat's most effective weapons, the ability to make humans sneeze.
According to news reports, Allerca hopes to have the world's first hypoallergenic cats on the market by 2007. The company is committed to developing more "lifestyle friendly" pets in the future, which is a kind of scary thought.
The ultimate "lifestyle friendly" cat, I suppose, would be one that can't scratch the curtains, doesn't make you sneeze, won't poop on your bed, cough up hairballs and won't gnaw your slippers. I already have an object like that. It's called a throw pillow.
TO A TRUE animal lover, it is the "lifestyle UN-friendly" aspects of an animal that make it part of the family. The fact that our dog Boomer likes to "bury" his cookie bones under the couch cushions is what makes him adorable. It also makes him get smacked on the head when a month-old decaying cookie bone is found lodged in the couch.
Our cat Musubi, who became famous after KITV news did a segment on her using the toilet, was a major lifestyle annoyance. The fact that she did her business in the toilet was great. That fact that she dragged half-eaten birds into the house and left them on our bed as gifts was problematic. She did lots of things (making me sneeze being the least objectionable) that made me want to throw her across the room. But because she was fully armed, that never happened. It was her idiosyncrasies that gave her personality.
Years after she passed on and departed our "lifestyle," I still miss her. How many throw pillows can you say that about?