Part of this is people continue to believe cats can’t be trained. It’s harder, but possible. It also means you have to work harder to train out bad behaviour (and they will only mostly stop while you’re around). So getting your cat to not bite you can be done, as well as training them to not go on the counter when you can see it.
Cats are also domesticated differently than most animals, and will absolutely, literally shit on things they know you care about if you piss them off.
It makes sense that bad cat owners are responsible, in large part, for bad cat behavior. That said, if it’s so difficult to raise a cat properly, then maybe cats just aren’t good pets for most people.
As I said, cats are domesticated differently. Current speculation is they self-domesticated during the beginning of agriculture. What this means for us is that, unlike dogs, it’s more of an agreement between us and them, and they will make it known if they don’t agree with the situation. This is the nugget of truth behind “Dogs have owners, cats have staff.” So, as with dogs, if your lifestyle isn’t acceptable to them, you shouldn’t own them. The difference is what is acceptable.
