The point is that cats are different from dogs.

A certain amount of breeding was necessary to refine dogs from the rough, tough, original stock to the smelly, fawning, dribbling morons

As they were turned into anything that society felt at the time that it really wanted—self-powered earth-moving machines, for example, or sleeve ornaments—so the basic dogness was gradually diluted.

Thus, your Real dog is far more likely to be a mongrel, except that the word is probably illegal these days, whereas all cats are, well, cats. More or less the same size, various colours, some fat, some thin, but still recognisably cats. Since the only thing they showed any inclination to do was catch things and sleep, no one ever bothered to tinker with them to make them do anything else. It's interesting to speculate on what they might have become had history worked out differently, though (see “The cats we missed”). All that cats were bred for, in fact, was general catness. All cats are potentially Real. It's a way of life…

What has the Campaign for Real Cats got against dogs, then?

Nothing.

Oh, come on.

No, there are perfectly good, well-trained, well-behaved dogs who do not bark like a stuck record, or crap in the middle of footpaths, sniff groins, act like everyone's favourite on mere assumption, and generally whine, steal and grovel in a way that would put a 14th century professional mendicant to shame. We recognise this.

Good.

There are also forgiving traffic wardens, tarts with hearts of gold, and solicitors who do not go on holiday in the middle of your complicated house purchase. You just don't meet them every day.