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Gay cat-lover records shocking attack from homophobic dog-walker
Homophobia, catphobia, and dog park etiquette collided over the weekend when a gay man walking his cat in a local London park got into it with a dog owner offended by the pair’s repeated appearance there.
“It’s 2026. People are gonna walk their cats,” Bengal owner Jerome said in an Instagram reel chronicling the ugly encounter. His cat-centric account boasts 140,000 followers.
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Jerome and his partner Jacques are well known around the neighborhood and the internet for walking their two cats, a Bengal named Rajah and a Russian Blue named Lupin, and offering up “free pet therapy” for those who could use it. The dogwalker in this unfortunate story appears to be someone who might benefit from some counseling.
“Being threatened, sworn at and called slurs because I walked my cat into a public space?” Jerome asked in his post accompanying the video.
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“You f*gg*t. You know this a f*cking dog park,” the dogwalker says in the video, bearing out Jerome’s claims.
According to Jerome, “This person is always hostile towards us whenever he sees us here. I chose to stand up for myself after he had already said a few words to me off camera, asking me to leave, all because he thinks his dogs shouldn’t have to be in the same space as our cats.”
“Rajah was completely under my control, on his lead; his dogs were both off lead. I was nowhere near him – his dogs didn’t even seem to react to us. I just simply entered the park and attempted to avoid him like I always do,” Jerome continued.
That didn’t help mitigate the encounter, apparently. But rather than ignore the dog owner’s taunts, Jerome pulled out his phone and filmed the encounter, defending himself and his cat.
“It’s not a dog park. It’s a park for all animals. And I can do what I want with my cat,” Jerome shouts across the grass to the man.
“You can f**k off,” the dog owner replies. “C**t.”
The man’s dachshund mix and pit bull terrier seemed oblivious to the human altercation.
After Jerome wouldn’t back down, the dogwalker added, “I’ll do more than talk if I see you with that f*cking cat.”
The verbal brawl in the park, adjacent to a neighborhood church, then drew in fellow pet owners who had gone out for their own Sunday strolls.
“Keep it down, you stupid motherf**kers,” said one woman fed up with the loud bickering.
“What makes you so entitled, my friend?” Jerome finally shouted to the man as he heads for an exit, clearly unhappy that his intolerance was being recorded.
“Yeah, s**t on me,” the man replied.
In a breakdown of the incident, Jerome lamented the dogwalker’s refusal to change his views on cats in the churchyard.
“I’m respectful. Most people are respectful,” Jerome said of his cats’ interactions with their traditional canine enemies and dog owners.
“I’m gonna walk my cat,” Jerome added. “I give grace and patience to people, but if I’m being bullied over and over again in a public space that I have access to, that I’ve been using, you’ve lost my respect at this point, and I’m not going to tolerate it.
“So to the man who called me a f**got, and had all the profanities in the world to say to me because I for once stood up to them, you’ll be hearing from the police. Trust and believe. No cat owner should ever have to put up with that,” he promised.
“Let’s end dog owner entitlement in 2016,” Jerome closed. “It’s not cute.”
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