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At the end of the story the narrator states that the cat is the reason of his death sentence. He never considers the retribution to be a consequence of his crime. This shows us the kind of arrogance and pride he carries inside himself although he states that his murder is very atrocious to the extent that it is far away from God's forgiveness 

Poe often gives us narrators with narrow vision.  It makes sense that this one would blame the cat for getting caught and not his heinous actions for putting him in danger in the first place.

As a dark Romanticist, Poe may have used the cat as a metaphor for the darker nature of the narrator.  For, the narrator mentions that he loves the first cat, but when he begins to commit evil acts, he mutilates the cat and later kills it.

A second cat appears that the narrator perceives as a reincarnation of the first--a resurgence of his darker side, perhaps.

So, when he blames the cat for the murder, the narrator is in a sense placing the culpability for the crime upon his own darker side.