Finally, the scientific proof that owning a cat really is madness

GOOD news, dogs and dog-lovers everywhere! Finally, we have scientific proof of our deepest and most fundamental beliefs. We’ve thought it for years, but now the data is out there for all to see. It’s true; it’s official: cats make you mad.

Okay, the researchers at the Medical Institute of Maryland put it slightly differently. They say owning a cat may increase your chances of becoming schizophrenic or manic depressive, but it’s obvious what they’re really trying to say is precisely what dog-lovers have always known; if you like cats, there’s got to be something wrong with you. The "something" is toxoplasma, a parasite carried by cats which infects humans and does such terrible things to their brains; they begin to exhibit strange behaviour - like buying even more cats, probably.

I still can’t work out how the scientists can tell. Surely, if someone owns a cat, they must already have some mental problems. Why else would they spend time, energy and money on loving a creature that exploits them, scorns them, ignores them and enjoys sharpening its claws on their bare flesh?

But owning a cat is only the start of the horrors of toxoplasma. Its effects are slow but permanent and can, according to the findings of the study, totally change the cat-owner’s personality. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly go out and buy a dog. Instead, women will become even more attractive to men, spend more money on personal grooming, have more friends, more opposite-sex relationships and become increasingly flighty and untrustworthy. Infected men, on the other hand, will turn into aggressive, unkempt loners who flout authority and are deeply jealous and suspicious.

Now, although, naturally, I flinch from picking holes in some good, solid, anti-cat research, I’m sensing a pattern here and it’s not wholly convincing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I think the boffins are saying is that if you own a cat, sooner or later a huge, evil germ will jump out of the cat, straight into you and, er, turn you into a cat.

In a nasty twist of biology, the women get to be sex kittens, but the men become alley cats. Bit of a bummer for the lads, but it would certainly explain the excessive spraying we’ve all encountered in public loos.

I’m completely torn here, because I desperately want to believe it, but every shred of my experience says I can’t. Until now, the thought of ending up as a Woman With Cats has been the deepest, darkest terror of every unhappy Western spinster. Are we suddenly to believe that the grey-haired recluse across the street, whose front door haemorrhages cats every time she opens it, is actually Michelle Pfeiffer’s evil twin sister in disguise and that those men she’s always shooing away aren’t from the environmental health department at all?

It also seems very hard on cats that they’re cursed with spreading a disease that makes everyone behave like them. Rats get toxoplasma from cats too, but it doesn’t appear that any have suddenly started playing with balls of wool, or stalking and killing each other in a toxoplasmic confusion of species.

The idea that cat-ownership can poison your system and skew your DNA makes me wonder if the National Canine Defence League isn’t somehow behind this study, which also indicates that toxoplasmic cat-owners (that’s half the population of Britain and the US, and 80-90 per cent of Germans and French) have more car accidents, due to slow reactions from their fluffy feline brains.

Surely there must be an up-side to this litany of doom? Maybe having lots of cats will eventually give the owner extraordinary cat-like powers - such as the ability to regularly fall from high buildings but remain unhurt (the research doesn’t say if any cat-owners were injured in those car smashes, does it?) and to look good in thigh-boots. But until toxoplasma is curable, maybe a cat is the ideal (I can’t say perfect now, can I?) present for someone you don’t like. It occurred to me that my husband is so scruffy, he might have a cat hidden away somewhere, but, when challenged, he denied it. Unfortunately, he’s now decided he wants one as a cover, so people will blame his untidiness on his cat-ownership and not on him.

Over my toxoplasmic body. I don’t care how desirable, popular and well-groomed it will make me. If I find a mewing box under the Christmas tree, I guarantee I’ll become very mad indeed.