A sweet, almost completely white, rescue cat has a black marking down the middle of his face in the shape of a phallus. This prevented him being adopted at a rescue centre. Eventually a man, whose father’s name is Richard, adopted the cat. For obvious reasons this man decided that Richard would be a good name for a cat with a phallus down the middle of his face. Of course, the intention was to call him Dick.
This man posted on the Reddit.com website saying: “AITA for adopting a cat that has a penis on his face and naming him Richard?”
The acronym AITA stands for “Am I The Asshole?”
So, the guy is asking other visitors to Reddit.com for their opinion about naming this sweet cat inappropriately or at least that is the question. Interestingly, the Reddit.com administrators removed the post but the comments remain. They think it is inappropriate for their website.
I will provide my comment but I sincerely hope that many others do in the comments box below although I expect no one will because comments are hard to come by these days!
My thoughts
I think this man is wrong. He is right to adopt this beautiful cat but he is wrong to name him Richard. He is also wrong to have discussed the matter on a social media forum, namely Reddit.com. There was no need for it. It is disrespectful to the cat although his cat can’t be insulted because he won’t understand what is going on.
However, it indicates a lack of sensitivity towards his cat. It indicates a lack of respect for the cat because obviously he is amused with his cat’s appearance and by the name he has given his cat. Why else would he advertise it on a website that gets lots of hits? He is in fact showing off because he thinks he’s clever. All-in-all, I would argue that he is disrespecting his cat.
Although he did adopt a rescue cat, but we have to ask why? Did he adopt this cat because he genuinely felt sorry for him being left on the shelf for so long because of his appearance? Or did he adopt a cat thinking that he might be able to vicariously obtain some celebrity status for himself through his cat, which, by the way, happens a lot on the Internet? I think it’s the latter because it is in line with his disrespect for his cat.
A decent and proper cat guardian would not do this. I therefore conclude that he is an asshole for doing what he did.
I would like you to tell me what you think, please in a comment. One last point: his sister-in-law would agree with me. She said that it was inappropriate and “a disservice to the cat and the cat’s feelings”. She believes that it is a form of “un-physical animal abuse”. I agree with her sentiments but I don’t agree with her analysis. I don’t think this cat is insulted because he doesn’t understand this form of human behaviour. It is behaviour between people by people for people and cats don’t get all that stuff. But I don’t think this guy is the right person to look after this cat or at least he is not ideal.
SOME MORE ON CAT RESCUE:
