Is a cat on a zoom call unprofessional?

[Catherine]

A woman was doing a zoom call with a new boss when her cat jumped on her lap. Her boss called the cat unprofessional.
So, she appealed to social media through Reddit to ask what people think. About half thought the cat was unprofessional.
Some questioned her boss and her whole work situation.

https://www.newsweek.com/internet-stitch...al-1746739

So, what do you think? Is a cat on a zoom call unprofessional?
During a zoom meeting I attended, we could see a cat on the counter eating from a dish behind the person. Some people got into a real panic about a cat on a counter eating something. It turns out that she keeps the cat's food on the counter and that is where he normally eats.
She probably has a dog that gets into the cat's food.

I wish there was a cat in the majority of meetings I have attended. People have had the camera angled funny, and we see their ceiling. Sometimes the person is clearly lying down. A cat on your lap would at least be sitting in front of the camera. I think zoom meeting need more cats!

[LPC]

I read the article closely. It mentions that the boss *and a client* were present. My hunch would be that the boss was more concerned that the client *might* think that the company wasn't serious about its work, rather than if it had just been a boss-worker meeting.

Having said that, the sort of people who think a cat is going to spoil a professional meeting must be incredibly narrow-minded....or simply don't like cats (such people exist). I agree with this part of the article:
"Some posters wrote serious answers, with Lopsided_Purpose_574 posting: 'At my monthly zoom meetings we start the day showing off our pets'."

[Catherine]

In the light of some of the things that have appeared in zoom calls, a cat is pretty mild. People have neglected to check the field behind their cameras. There have been some interesting images and some very inappropriate ones. People found out about a co-worker's affair with another staff because the camera picks up anything in its field.  A client would know that the person is sitting at a desk, properly dressed if she had a cat in her lap.

I have taken zoom meetings sitting in a stairwell and in a bus shelter. A cat in the lap would have been an improvement.