If we hear of anybody else trying and failing to open a cat park we’re going to be sick. (You needed 50,000 signatures and you only got 253? Seriously, Vancouver?) Please stop trying, community groups. There is no such thing as a cat park and there will never be. Here’s why.

Cats Are Private

Stop by a dog park and wait five seconds. What do you see? Urinating and defecating dogs. It’s disgusting. It’s amazing anyone goes in there. Why don’t you just lick an elevator button, dog owners? Giving cats the chance to defecate and urinate in front of all the world so you can gather round and applaud them when they do so — dog owners! — is the worst idea ever, because cats are not going to play ball.

Cats are not going to poop. Cats are experts at not pooping. If you ever want to see how fantastic a cat is at not pooping, then just put him in a kennel for the first time in his life and go to Hawaii for two weeks. Freaking cat just ruined your trip.

Cats Are Solitary

Cats don’t like to gambol with other cats they have just met, because they’re too busy preparing to kill one another — when they’re not actually killing one another. Ruthless predators are bad at mingling.

The only time cats get together on the spur of the moment is when large prey must be taken down during group kills, or when a wounded possum wanders bleeding down an alley and the bloodlust takes over and five cats tear it apart in minutes, securing body parts for their owners at home. Cats are badass.

Cats Won’t Run

Don’t cajole, don’t throw a ball, don’t show Peppers how it’s done. Cats aren’t going to run unless there’s a fowler on hand, releasing doves soaked in chicken stock from a cage every ten minutes. That’s actually a reason to build a cat park right there. Let’s put that in the plus column.

Cats Won’t Even Walk Around

If someone ever builds a cat park, filled with natural grasses and reclaimed-pine scratching trees and state-of-the-art water features, do you know what you’re going to see? Isolated, quivering mounds with distended claws and wide eyes, like little furry hillocks of paranoia and fear-rage. Cats don’t like to be dropped into Great Unknown Zones. Do you have any idea how long it takes a cat to acclimate to a new area? 98 hours and 10 minutes, according to my study, How Long It Took for My Cat to Come Out from Under the Bed and Nose Around the New House After I Moved, whereas my dog was already having sex with the mailbox before I’d unlocked the door.

You build a cat park, and it’ll be a Cold War in that cat park, with dead silence and nothing moving, until an acorn drops and the cats get startled and the place turns hot and it all goes to hell. You don’t want to be there when that happens. You don’t want your kids there when that happens. You want to be as far away from that cat park as possible.

And that’s why there’s no such thing as a cat park.

Photo credits: Gray tabby on leash, two playing cats and cat fight by Shutterstock.