Monday kicked off one of those ‘weeks’ that often pops up on the calendar for no apparent reason. This one is ‘Cat Week’.
And according to various studies, it will take longer than seven days to raise the cat’s social standing to the same level of its canine counterpart.
READ MORE: Danes increasingly throwing out cats with the rubbish
Discardable items
A new study reveals that only four out of 10 cat owners would take their cat to the vet if it was sick.
While a study by animal protection group Dyrenes Beskyttelse showed that 2,889 cats were simply tossed out by their owners in 2015, making up 82 percent of the total number of animals left behind.
Cheap and countless
“The cat has been given a low status in society,” Jens Jokumsen from Dyrenes Beskyttelse told Metroxpress.
“Probably because there are so many kittens and they are often free.”
Other animal rights activists pointed out that many people incorrectly assume that cats are ‘wild animals’ that will simply adapt to the wild if they are left behind by their owners.
A dog’s life
The revelation that many cat owners never take their cat to the vet was particularly upsetting to Jokumsen.
“It is really sad that people do not take proper care of their cat,” he said.
“Unfortunately, people think differently about owning a cat than they do a dog.”
