Why Paint Cats?
Why, Indeed? A Book Review (Almost)
There are plenty of reasons to be embarrassed by my species. Humans have hunted several species to extinction, taken over the habits of countless others, and continue to sing karaoke in bars even though it's a proven fact that no one ever sounds good doing it. Still, once in a while I come across something so shameful, I have to wonder how we ever managed to climb down out of the trees in the first place.
Why Paint Cats? is one of those things. At first, my response was, "Well, why not? People paint trees and sunsets and sailboats all of the time and no one really hassles them. Who cares if a few artists paint pictures of cats?"
No one, apparently. The book isn't about painting pictures of cats. It's about painting the cats. Dyeing their fur. Seriously. And I thought I needed a real hobby. The way I discovered this is some woman I work with was having a bad day. (I work at a restaurant. It's hard not to have a bad day when your job consists of sucking up to rude tourists for tiny tips.) So anyhow, a friend of hers stopped in and brought her a gift. This book:
Because I didn't get a chance to actually read it and find out why, I have to seriously wonder about these people. Though the title of the book makes it seem like it debates the principals behind giving your cat a new hair do, the actually book looked more like a photo coffee table piece. Each page had an opposing page that described the painted cat and their owners, or something like that. Not much in-depth essay there. My suspicions increased when I found out the author, Heather Busch, has another book called Why Cats Paint, which appears to be another fluffed up photobook/artbook of sorts.
Being the hardcore detective that I truly am at heart, I did extensive research (I used three different search engines and about 15 minutes of my precious time). I never did find any sites about people who actually dye their cat's fur or paint their pets. I did find a lot of ugly drawings of cats.
I did manage to get a good look at all of the photos of these poor, discolored animals. Some were painted very basically, either dyed a new color or pink and green stripped or had white moons and stars painted on their black fur. Others were more elaborate. One poor creature was "dressed up" as a clown via the magic of fur dye. Another had little purple flowers painted on it to match its owners dress. More unfortunate cats were actually painted to look like other animals (one was convincingly painted to look like a pig, snout and all.)
The woman who received the book said she's read the introduction and it talks about how the process and paints do not harm the cats in anyway. Except their pride. Also, it makes them more visible to predators.
So when I first envisioned this article it seemed to have a point, but since I was unable to uncover secret societies that color their animals, that point has faded from my mind. I guess it stands to say, "Why on Earth would someone do that to their cat? And why, if there's a perfectly good book on the subject, does no one seem to have answers?" Since the subject is so elusive, I think I'm going to drop it and move on with my life.
Blame Coffee Rating (of 10 cups): 4 cups and a flavor shot. If you have any interest at all in painting your feline, I suggest you read this first on the off-chance it contains any useful information. Otherwise, thumb through it next time you've got an hour to kill at a bookstore. Some of the photos are pretty cool and some of the cats are fun to laugh at (in the same way it's fun to laugh at an injured friend--you know it's wrong, but you just can't help it).
Tori
10/14/02