Many people cannot relate to cat owners finding preciousness and other qualities in their beloved pets, including a non-humanly innocence, that make losing them someday such a horrible heartbreak.

And even when the innocent animal has been made to greatly suffer needlessly, perhaps before finally being murdered, many people will nevertheless think and even mutter, ‘It was just a cat’.

There’s too much anti-cat complacency and contempt out there, even amongst news-media professionals.

For example, I came across a newspaper editor's column about courthouse protesters in Ontario, Canada, who were demanding justice for a cat that had been cruelly shot in the head 17 times with a pellet gun, destroying an eye. Within her piece, the editor rather recklessly declared: “Hey crazy people, it’s [just] a cat.”

In a follow-up column, the editor expressed surprise at having then received some very angry responses, including a few implied threats, from cat lovers and animal rights activists.

Apparently, she couldn’t relate to the intensely heartfelt motivation behind the public outrage, regardless of it being directed at such senseless cruelty to an innocent animal; therefore, the demonstrators were somehow misguided. The court may have also perceived it so, as the charges against the two adult-male perpetrators were dropped. ...

Then there was the otherwise progressive national commentator proclaiming in one of her then-syndicated columns that “I never liked cats”. In another piece, she wrote that Canadian politicians should replace their traditional unproductively rude heckling with caterwauling:

“My vote is for meowing because I don’t like cats and I’d like to sabotage their brand as much as possible. So if our elected politicians are going to be disrespectful in our House of Commons, they might as well channel the animal that holds us all in contempt.”

I Googled the internet but found no potential reason(s) behind her publicized anti-feline sentiments. Still, if her motives were expressed, perhaps she'd simply say, ‘I just don’t like cats’.

As for my own very endearing house cat, the non-contemptuous Mr. Simon, I believe he appreciates me as much as I express my enthusiastic appreciation for him.

Yet only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent government-/publicly-funded spay/neuter programs, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted or even resented.

In the meantime, precious cats gratuitously greatly suffer and die.