Settle an argument pls: Do you need to shower cats here? Native Thai opinion especially welcome.

*EDIT: Thanks for all the replies. Just to clarify – I know that cats clean themselves and I’ve owned cats for 40 years. My question was really about:
1. Is this a Thai thing?
2. Does living in a tropical climate change how necessary it is to shower cats?*

So my Thai wife and family insist that regular showering of cats is necessary to stop them being dirty.
I (non-Thai) have only ever bathed/showered cats when they’ve got themselves covered in dirt and and oil etc (outside cats) or if they’ve had a ‘toilet incident’ and have shite in their fur (indoor or outdoor cats).

To clarify, the cats in question are indoor cats* and only leave their room to go to the vet for shots etc.

*On a related subject, how normal is it here to confine pets to (what I consider to be) small spaces? My Thai family is perfectly happy keeping their cats, dogs, reptiles etc cooped up, and find it weird that I’m uncomfortable with it.

Where I come from, people tend to give pets as much room to roam as possible, zoos are not cool, and we don’t tend to keep pets in a cage or confine them to one room. Is this just a cultural thing and I need to get the fuck over myself?

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