Twenty years from now…

There’s a revolution afoot and it’s about time! Intelligent, caring cat owners are finally taking control of the lives of their favorite species through in-home, captive breeding programs.

An offshoot of the burgeoning hobby-farm movement, where citizens demonstrate their dedication to healthful practices, family activities and the environment through home-based agriculture, the cat breeding craze shows no signs of abating.

Disgusted by the suffering of millions of feral, pseudo-housecats nationwide, these feline farmers have elected to breed a new version of the domesticated housecat, one less territorial and aggressive in nature. Urine-soaked sofas, dead-bird offerings and inter-cat anxiety? Things of the past, say these cat-loving caretakers.

Thus relieved of their tumultuous, serenity-ending instincts, these felines are quieter, more contented and less likely to wreak havoc in their loving homes. Their personalities are “lighter” and less introverted, earning them adoration even from the ranks of the once “feline-unfriendly” humans among us. In fact, this new “breed” has been referred to by devotees as being downright “doglike.”

An added bonus for many is the genetic variation now available: the allergen-free housecat. No longer is this mutation considered private property of one small outfit in Texas. This gene is now offered by freegene.com as one of many you can easily order for use in your breeding stock or in convenient gene therapy ampules.

Opponents of the movement are numerous, however. They argue against the menace of cat breeding for its widespread effects on public support for feral cat populations nationwide. They view the “new” cat an abomination to the dignity of the species and a threat to homeless felines nationwide.

As one naysayer laments, “These cats no longer prefer to roam out of doors in keeping with their true, feline nature. There’s something very wrong here. The wildness has gone out of our cats. They’ve been emasculated.”

Yet indoor cat fanciers claim the species’ new turn is no different than that imposed by dog lovers of centuries past in creating companion breeds such as the Pug or the Cavalier King Charles spaniel. In the absence of these efforts would dogs be still relegated to their exclusively-out-of-doors-worker status to the detriment of dog lovers everywhere?

Moreover, they contend, our male housecats have been literally(!) emasculated for the past hundred years as a means of harnessing their pet qualities (to the detriment of their “nature,” and, in some cases, to the detriment of their health). “How are these new practices any worse?” they ask.

Proponents of this novel approach to intensive feline domestication eschew many of the cat breeding practices of the past. Far from crafting genetic combinations for cosmetic fancy, they’re catering to the cult of “cat personality” with new techniques aimed to yield active, alert, intelligent animals with deeply affectionate, solicitous demeanors.

As one of the new generation of cat fanciers posits, “A better pet. A healthier animal. Less environmental damage. Less suffering. What could be wrong with that?”