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Well, that rather depends on what cats want at the time. It might be food, or love. Or they might just want to gaslight their humans for fun.

On our local neighbourhood Facebook page, people often post to announce that a starving stray cat has just turned up at their house. This is a trick that piss-taking cats have been playing since time began but, for whatever reason, we stupid humans are only just starting to get wise to it. For every ten stray cat posts, there are nine replies saying, “Oh, that’s Alfie from Whatever Road. Don’t believe his lies.” But it doesn’t stop us from posting to ask anyway. 

Boots – he of the Chelsea/Crystal Palace collars – is another massive con artist. He picks on his stepbrother, fights with any animal that has a pulse, costs his mamma heaps of money and is generally a bit of a bastard. Yet, when he goes to the vet, he’s charming and impeccably-behaved in front of staff and affable towards other animals, all in an effort to make his mamma look like a delusional fantasist. In fact, he’s the only cat I know who loves going to the vet, because they roll out the red carpet for him and lavish him with praise every time. 

Louis Catorze is just as bad. As well as having a desperate, plaintive meow, Catorze has an additional weapon in his arsenal of deceit: looking like shite. When he screams at people, not only does he want attention but he wants, where possible, for others to look at him and either think he’s a stray or think we’re shit parents who haven’t been looking after him. It’s gaslighting of the highest order. So our biggest fear isn’t that Catorze might be kidnapped or run over, but that some well-intentioned citizen might scoop him up and deliver him to a rescue, thinking they’d done a good deed. 

Here he is, doing his fake “I’m being kept prisoner!” voice. He isn’t. He just wanted to go out at The Front:

In short, that first impression could be anything from “a bit neglected” to “profoundly suffering”. Whatever they may convey, cats are master manipulators so the truth is likely to be the opposite. 

For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com