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Please explain why cats get to roam neighborhoods without a leash. They make terrible noises at night, leave their crap in my yard, and they kill birds. Why do my dogs need to be leashed and not cats?
—Confused Pet Owner
The standard answer is that a loose cat can't kill or maim anybody, whereas a loose dog (at least in theory; sorry, shih tzu fanciers) may.
Still, I get where dog owners are coming from. Multnomah County code defines "animal at large" as "any animal, excluding domestic cats, that is not physically restrained on [its] owner's or keeper's premises."
Did you catch that? The sleaziest lobbyist at Exxon could only goggle in jealousy at the massive by-name exception carved out of the law on behalf of the feline species. Under current law, a cat can drive a stolen car through a school playground at 80 mph, bottle of whiskey in one paw and a loaded revolver in the other, and all the cops can do is give him a friendly wave.
How did cats get away with this? Perhaps it's because cats are—conceptually, at least—Democrats. Having a dog, meanwhile, is basically Republican.
Republicans love the top-down, hierarchical thrill of underlings who know their place and think their boss is a god. Sound like anyone you've seen at the dog park lately? Moreover, this slavish adoration is focused on the very person who cut their balls off, which makes me think of the Tea Party and the Koch brothers.
Cat owners, for their part, take masochistic pleasure in pouring resources into a black hole that doesn't know they exist. If that's not the definition of a Democrat's relationship to government, I don't know what is.
Given the overwhelmingly Democratic local power structure, then, it's no wonder cats are pulling the strings. Especially if they're attached to an expensive sweater.
WWeek 2015