Personally?I was raised around animals(cats,dogs,pigs,chickens,etc.) and I always had access to at least one cat.My mom had a feral tom(a literal feral tom) that slept in my crib.He died.We moved,and the neighbors had cats.We moved again.At my fathers house I had a big wolf dog cross-he was my dog-and I can remember seeing that dog running from a cat that was chasing it. When I was five or six (now 17) My mom shoved my current cat,a kitten too young to be weaned,into my arms and told me it was my cat,it was my job to take care of it,and that the first time I messed up the cat was getting put down.She fed her before she could eat solids,but once she was weaned,my cat was my full responsibility.I've had her for 11 years and hope to have her for a lot longer.So while my cat is what got me focused on cats,I've always obsessed about animals,so it wasn't too big a switch to focus on cats.