SHIFTHEADS: Why Cats Got a Bad Reputation (And Kept It)

Thirty percent of people don't like cats. Only five percent feel that way about dogs. Rod Phillips has spent years figuring out why, and the answer goes back further than most people expect. Phillips, a historian at Carleton University and author of Cats: A History, makes the case that cats haven't changed in thousands of years. What changed is what people decided they meant. The Middle Ages turned them into devil's accomplices. Walt Disney named his most famous cat Lucifer and went on record saying he didn't like cats because you can't tell them what to do. The bias didn't start there, but it stuck there. The conversation comes down to one distinction that reframes everything: dogs attach to people, cats attach to place. Once that lands, the grouchiness, the ignoring you, the walking away mid-eye-contact, all of it starts to make a different kind of sense. Topics: history of cats and humans, cat behaviour explained, cats versus dogs, medieval cats witchcraft, Rod Phillips Cats a History GUEST: Rod Phillips Originally aired on 2026-06-30