Whitehall withdraws its clause for cat lavatories

Some Brit bureaucats apparently REALLY need to get a real job, or at least find something actually useful to do with their current job. If this wasn’t a problem they couldn’t have even gotten so far as to even propose something like this.

A government guide that tells pet owners to provide private lavatories for their cats – and “mental stimulation” to prevent them getting bored -is to be withdrawn. The draft code of conduct for cat owners was drawn up by the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) alongside the Animal Welfare Bill, which received royal assent in Parliament yesterday.

The 17-page document lays down rules that cat owners should abide by to ensure the health, safety and happiness of their pets. The provisions of this remind one of something like a Monty Python gag:

It says cats “need to go to the lavatory somewhere where they can behave naturally and feel comfortable”. Like humans, it says, they value their privacy. “Your cat should have somewhere private to go to the toilet with sufficient clean litter.”

Equally vital, its says, is the need to provide entertainment and mental stimulation to cats. “Cats that are kept indoors or prefer this lifestyle rely on you to provide everything for them. “You should ensure your cat gets enough mental stimulation from you and from its environment so that it does not become bored and frustrated.”

Not only were these to be helpful suggestions, but failure to observe these provisions could be a factor in prosecution for cruelty to animals!

The code states that a breach of its recommendations would not constitute an offence in itself but would be taken into account when judgments were made on whether an offence of cruelty had been committed.

This did not go without notice in Parliament, either:

Ann Widdecombe, MP and cat-lover, who protested about the “lunacy” of the code in the House of Commons this week.The former Tory Home Office minister said it was the product of a government that interfered in all aspects of life.

Now THAT’s an example of English understatement!

Miss Widdecombe, who has two cats, Arbuthnot, 12, and Pugwash, 11, said she was also flabbergasted to read in the code that all cat owners should be aware of the exact weight of their animal if they were to be safe from prosecution. She told MPs: “I am now being told that I commit an offence if I cannot say – which I cannot – how much my cat should weigh in order to keep me within the law, relevant to its bone structure, its size and its breed.”

M.P. Widdecombe was later gratified that the overall absurdity of the regulation became so obvious to the bureaucats that the whole thing was dumped into the litter pile.

Now, if we can get rid of the GPF (gallons per flush) toilet regs over here, there may be hope for a contagious outbreak of reason on both sides of the Atlantic.