Are cats confused by putting the clocks backwards or forwards for winter and summer time?

In the UK, and I expect in other countries, the clocks are put back and forwards at certain times of the year because it is believed that this makes it safer and better for people going to work and school children going to schools.  One cat expert said that winter and summer time adjustments confused cats but I would argue that it does not for the following reasons.

Cats do not read the time. They are not concerned with clocks. They are concerned with the natural rhythms of light and darkness, day and night.  And therefore their lives are distanced from the human watch and clock.  If dawn arrives a bit later or a bit earlier and if dusk arrives later or earlier the domestic cat will simply move his activity levels to fit in with those events.

The cat will not be confused by this change because he’s naturally in tune with nature. It is the changing of the clocks which goes against the rhythms of nature and, as it happens, often confuses us because we forget to adjust our clocks and have, of course, got used to certain times of day so when they are changed artificially it can be temporarily confusing for us.

The only possible way that putting clocks backwards or forwards could confuse cats is because we are more active at a different time; say, in the morning we might get up earlier as a consequence. However, this is unlikely to confuse our cat because we are active at different times to our cat therefore, strictly speaking, we are out of sync with our cat’s activities.

So for example in the morning our cat gets up and starts being active well before us and in the evening, while we are chilling out after a day’s work, our cat wants to be active because it is dusk. Therefore any changes to the timing of our activity levels as a result of a one-hour adjustment in time has little impact upon our cat.

If we come home an hour earlier or an hour later than usual because the clocks have been adjusted then that might have a minor impact upon our cat who might be waiting for us but that is about as bad as it might get with respect to our cat becoming confused, in my opinion.