Converter help

My neighbor was just telling me that I need to protect the converter on my car or else my cat will lick it. He said they used to do it a lot more and it doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but I can’t really make sense of what that means or why it’s important. I’ve looked around online and haven’t been able to find anything about cats licking converters or why it’s bad for them.

Can anyone help me out here? He made it sound really important so I want to know a bit more about it before I take my car to the shop but I felt bad asking him more because he was born overseas and speaks with a heavy accent. Is this something my local mechanic can help me with?