Catpawcino ^
THE FILM
Catpawcino is a short observational documentary about the realities of Cat Cafe's and looking from both the Cat Cafe and Animal Welfare charities points of view to decide whether they are right or wrong.
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Cat cafe’s in the UK have been aware for a while that the large animal welfare charities, such as the RSPCA, have spoken out about their concerns for the cats welfare in such a strange environment for the cats, but what does each side of the story really think?
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In Catpawcino, we try to get down to the bones of the issue in hand by asking the questions that matter. We question cat cafe owners, workers and customers and then show the spin side of the story by talking to behaviour experts at animal welfare charities such as Cats Protection.
THE FACTS
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The idea of a cat cafe is guests pay a set cover fee to enter the cafe, which covers the costs of running the cafe and looking after the cats and in return the guests can spend an hour (usually pre booked) with the cats to interact and also buy food and drink from the cafe.
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Cat Cafes originated in Taiwan in 1998, the first cafe being called the "Cat Flower Garden", but they took off in Japan, when the first one (named "Cats Time") opened in 2004.
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In 2005, Tokyo's first cat cafe opened (called "Shop of cats") and it was from here onwards that cat cafes boomed across Japan. From 2005 to 2010, seventy-nine cat cafés opened across the country.
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Since then, Cat cafe's have opened worldwide. The UK currently has 10, Lady Dinahs Cat Emporium in Shoreditch, London being the first to arrive in 2014.