I admit it. I'm a cat lady. I've grown up with cat's all of my life and I try to say I'm not one, but I am. I got my first cat in first grade and since then I've had three more. I currently have two cats and I love them to death. I don't know why I love cats so much more than dogs, but I do. Maybe it's because my cats don't make obnoxious noises like dogs do. Or maybe it's because I can hold my cat like a baby without him hesitating instead of having a lap dog. Whatever it is, I love cats and over the years I've noticed the discrimination against them and how most businesses favor dogs over cats.

The separation between the two pets was recently brought to my attention when I was looking for cat toys to give my cats for Christmas. I checked at three different stores and at every one the cat section was at least half the size as the dog section, sometimes even smaller. I was especially surprised when I went to a specialty pet store, where they had a wall full of Christmas themed dog toys right as you walk in the door, but the cat toys were all of the ways at the back of the store and I could count on one hand how many of those toys were Christmas themed. I was baffled because I believe there are just as many cat people as there are dog people in the world, so why are we getting the short end of the stick? What did we ever do to deserve so much segregation and discrimination?

We did nothing wrong. We just happen to like cats better than dogs. I know this type of discrimination is nothing compared to the discrimination we see between different races and genders, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem. I hope someday cats and dogs will be looked at equally. And even rabbits, fish, and hamsters. Those animals might be a little more scarce than cats and dogs, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be pampered by their owners as well. All animals deserve to have nice toys to play with. I hope big name pet companies like PetSmart and Petco and superstores like Walmart and Target realize they need to offer more variety for all of their pet owners. Then all of our pets will have all sorts of toys to play with and us cat owners won't feel gipped.