"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction."
We’ve always believed there’s something meaningful about people who care deeply about cats. For a long time, cats were misunderstood, underestimated, and underserved, and cat advocates have played an important role in helping people better understand their needs.
Today, cats seem to be everywhere. On social feeds. In retail campaigns. At adoption events. Across internet culture. The pet world has even declared 2026 “The Year of the Cat.”
But behind the cultural moment is something more important: people are beginning to understand cats differently.
The shift isn’t imagined. Cat parenting in the United States has surged in recent years, growing from roughly 40 million households in 2023 to nearly 49 million today. Multi-cat households are growing even faster.
Dense urban living has likely contributed to the rise of cats as more people in apartments and smaller living spaces gravitate toward companionship that fits more naturally into their daily lives.
The bigger change surrounding cats isn’t just numerical. It’s cultural. Cats are no longer treated as background pets or low-maintenance companions. More people are recognizing that cats are sensitive, social, environmentally responsive animals with unique biological and behavioral needs.
That deeper understanding is reshaping the way people live with cats, care for them, and think about their long-term health.
The internet didn’t just make cats more visible. It changed the way people understand feline behavior, health, and environmental needs.
Online communities, videos, veterinary content, and behavior-focused discussions have given cat parents access to information that once lived mostly in clinics, shelters, and behavior circles. Cat parents now openly discuss litter box issues, stress behaviors, environmental enrichment, nutrition, urinary health, and multi-cat household dynamics in ways that were far less common even a decade ago.
That visibility changed something important: cat behavior stopped feeling random.
What people once dismissed as “weird,” “moody,” or “erratic” behavior is now more commonly understood through the lens of feline stress, communication, instinct, and environment.
One of the biggest shifts has been recognizing that cats are not small dogs. They are obligate carnivores with unique biological and behavioral needs shaped by both predatory instinct and environmental sensitivity. As both predator and prey, wild cats sit in the middle of the food change, and that informs how domestic cats see and navigate the world as well. They are highly observant animals that constantly evaluate their surroundings for comfort and safety.
As cat parents learn more about feline stress, enrichment, litter box behavior, and species-specific nutrition, expectations around cat care are changing too. More people are designing homes, routines, and environments around what helps cats feel secure, healthy, and able to thrive.
People once viewed cats as largely self-sufficient pets that simply coexisted alongside human life. Today, many cat parents structure parts of their homes, routines, and emotional lives around their cats’ wellbeing.
Catios, enrichment spaces, intentional play sessions, species-appropriate nutrition, and multi-cat environmental management all reflect a broader cultural shift: people are paying closer attention to how cats actually experience the world.
From understanding stress signals to recognizing litter box behavior as communication, cat parents are beginning to see cats less as passive companions and more as emotionally complex animals with deeply individual needs.
Long before cats became the center of lifestyle campaigns and internet culture, Dr. Elsey’s was built around a simple idea: when cats struggle, there’s usually a reason.
That philosophy traces back even further than the company itself. In October of 1978, Dr. Bruce Elsey opened the All Cat Clinic, one of the earliest feline-exclusive veterinary practices in the United States.
Founded in 1987, Dr. Elsey’s grew out of decades of hands-on veterinary experience treating cats with stress-related litter box issues, urinary challenges, and environmental sensitivities. At a time when cats were often treated as smaller, lower-maintenance versions of dogs, Dr. Elsey’s focused on something different: understanding cats on their own terms.
That philosophy still shapes the company today.
Cats experience the world differently than we do. They respond to scent, texture, routine, noise, placement, stress, and environmental change in ways that are easy to overlook until something goes wrong. Litter box problems, stress behaviors, and changes in routine are often signals that something in the environment no longer feels right to the cat.
Cats also have unique nutritional requirements as obligate carnivores with no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates. Feeding biologically appropriate nutrition remains paramount in supporting the longevity of a cat’s life.
For decades, Dr. Elsey’s has approached cat care through that lens: species-specific nutrition, low-dust unscented litters, feline behavior research, and products developed around how cats actually live and behave.
The world may finally be having a “cat moment,” but the work is far from finished.
Cats are still too often misunderstood. Stress-related illness is still common. Litter box problems are still dismissed instead of investigated. Many cats still live in environments that fail to account for their biological and behavioral needs.
That’s why our focus has never been about trends. It has always been about improving the lives of cats through better understanding, better environments, better nutrition, and better care.
If more people are beginning to see cats more clearly today, that’s something worth celebrating.
But it should also challenge all of us, from veterinarians and shelters to brands, retailers, and cat parents, to keep learning and making better decisions for the cats who depend on us.
Cats have always deserved that level of care. They still do.