Reduce distance between vertical axis categorical variables plot

Say I have the following code:

% convert y axis to categorical

y_cat = categorical({'Cat (A)'; 'Cat (B)'; 'Dog (A)'; 'Dog (B)'});

% reorder y axis

y_cat = reordercats(y_cat,{'Cat (A)'; 'Cat (B)'; 'Dog (A)'; 'Dog (B)'}); 

plot([-0.0904719; -0.0360067; -0.1152766; 0.0423135], y_cat);

hold on

% make horizontal error bars

hline = errorbar([-0.0904719; -0.0360067; -0.1152766; 0.0423135],y_cat,[0.0492568;0.0467123;0.0829603;0.0509949],[0.0492568;0.0467123;0.0829603;0.0509949],'horizontal');
hline.Bar.LineStyle = 'dashed';

% Italicize y axis tick labels 

ax=gca;

ax.TickLabelInterpreter='tex';
ax.YTickLabel={'\it Cat (A)', '\it Cat (B)', '\it Dog (A)', '\it Dog (B)'};  

% make vertical line at 0

xline(0, ':', 'linewidth', 1);

And after some point and click editing in Figures, I get the current output:

What I'd like to do, however, is reduce the distance between different categorical variables, for example the Dog (B) and Dog (A) horizontal lines should be close to each other, and similarly for the Cat group. I want something in the following figure (edited using paint to illustrate my desired output):

How can I achieve something like this?

Answer 1

[Jiri Hajek]

You could do this by using numerical Y axis values instead of categorical, and then apply your own YTicks.