Thanksgiving Day is neutral to bad for cats

Thanksgiving Day is not good for cats

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

The only thing about Thanksgiving Day that a cat might like is the human food being cooked in the kitchen and perhaps some treats as a way of thanking your cat for being such a good companion. Oh, and perhaps the cat’s companions are around more than usual but they are too occupied preparing the feast to interact with their cat. Someone might make a fuss of the cat when the after-meal conversation has dried up. Someone might chuck a bit of Turkey his way and the guests will smile and go “ahh”.

On the Catster website there is a long page on whether cats like Thanksgiving Day. To be frank it is pile of boring waffle because there is nothing to say about cats and Thanksgiving Day. It is an entirely human concept and process. There is nothing in it for the cat.

Thanksgiving is intended to be a thank you to your God for a successful harvest and I suppose getting through another year. It probably had some real meaning when people depended on the harvest to survive.The original 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was a thank you for a good harvest apparently, so states the Wikipedia author. Even then, in those days, it would have been meaningless for cats. The cats would have been semi-domesticated or outside cats. There would have been more barn cats 100s of years ago.

Actually the cats around the party fire in those days would have been the first domestic cats in the country that would become the United States of America. They’d be English cats! Or European cats. The first immigrants were pilgrims and Puritans. They brought their religious festivals with them from England.

Thanksgiving was a religious festival, which is now a secular opportunity to take a day off and eat and drink too much.

I suppose hundreds of years ago until today, as stated, the cats of the family might be given a bit of the human food or special cat food as a treat, if they’re lucky. But the extra noise of the celebration and the strangers visiting would be the downside for a cat. Net result: neutral to bad.

What else can you say about modern Thanksgiving day in relation to cats? I guess it could be dangerous. Guests coming and going. Opportunities for indoor cats to “escape”. To be brutally honest there is almost no connection between cats and Thanksgiving. The two run parallel courses and cats put up with it or get locked in the bedroom ;).

Is your cat enjoying Thanksgiving Day. Go on, prove me wrong!

Original photo.

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3 thoughts on “Thanksgiving Day is neutral to bad for cats”

  1. I suppose Thanksgiving Day in the USA is in a way like our Harvest Festival here. Churches celebrate in a Sunday service and people take food to distribute to poor people afterwards.
    I think it’s a much better way to celebrate the old ‘good harvest’ but the downside for working people is that they don’t get a day off.
    I don’t think that many people bother at all though, only regular Church goers.
    So cats here aren’t really affected at all by this.
    A friend in the USA was going to drive 85 miles to meet friends to celebrate yesterday, to me that seems a long long way to go just for a few hours and her cat would be alone for most of the day.
    It always amazes me the distance Americans go without thinking twice about it.

    Reply
    • My sister went about 100 miles yesterday, give or take, but stayed the night. I’ve driven about half that distance to work at a facility in another city and come back the same day. The interstate highway system makes it easy, unless there is road construction or bad weather. Although once I actually got home from 50 miles away in less time than it took my friend to drive across town. The blizzard had everything at a standstill in town, but traffic was still moving on the interstate.

      Reply
  2. Monty had us both home all morning when normally we would be at work. We didn’t leave until after two p.m. He got outside time on a day he probably would not have gotten out. He got tuna as a special treat. So it was good for Monty. He and took a long nap together in the morning. He liked that.
    My sister is up north so her cat Kobe is alone. That’s not so good. He got tuna as a special treat also, but I think he’d prefer to have my sister there. She’ll be back tomorrow.
    At least neither of our cats had to deal with guests.

    Reply

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