Ailurophobia

[xiphias]

A couple days ago, I was asking Lis about the fear of cats, because it's something I just totally don't get. I don't even understand how someone possibly COULD be afraid of a cat. So we looked it up, and apparently, some people are afraid that a cat will jump on them and scratch them.

I thought about how ridiculous that fear was. . . and then I looked at all the scars on my hands, arms, and shoulders from our cats jumping on me, and falling off, and scratching me . . .

Honestly, I bet that, if you laid all my cat-scratch scars out end-to-end, you'd be at somewhere around a foot/30 cm. Yeah, I guess I can't really call that an irrational fear, can I?

Comments

[redbird]

I don't have scars from my cats, past and present: but I did once have to take a benadryl after julian_tiger scratched me, because he'd gotten something (I don't know what) on his claw and the scratch got it into my system. So there's also an allergy risk even for people who aren't allergic to cats. (Small, I'd say, especially for an indoor cat like Julian, but nonzero.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Even indoor cat scratches are significant infection risks -- those paws that they accidentally scratch you with are the same ones they bury their feces with. We go through a fair bit of triple-antibiotic ointment.