In other words pets not just animals that people tolerated.
There is a push currently to say that European people did not regard cats as pets generally until the 1800s when some artist started doing pictures of them. There was even a movie about it. Cute movie. Not accurate. But still cute.
This is proof that cats were pets long before that point. And during a time when, once more according to the latest historical fashion, when everyone in Europe was killing cats because they were "of the devil." While there may have been a few of those people, heck they are still around, this shows that among the most superstitious group in the area at the time cats were pets.
Did ot know the background.
For Pete’s sake cats were a part of Egyptian culture. Not only as gods iirc