Cat Poses for Owner's Photo From House Window but There's a Problem

A pet owner has described the moment his wife showed him with a seemingly ordinary picture of their tabby cat looking at them from an upstairs window.

Dr. Dean Burnett's wife had just returned home from taking the kids to school when she asked her husband to come and take a look at the picture she had snapped of Pickle looking out of a window.

"It wasn't a bad picture, but by no means unusual as we have many pictures of the cat," Burnett told Newsweek. "Indeed, we have the actual cat to look at whenever we like, so I was confused as to why she was showing me this photo."

Then he spotted it. "I told her that I don't remember those decorations on the windowsill. She said, 'No, I wouldn't, as they're not ours.' The window Pickle was sitting in wasn't one in our house, but a neighbor's. And suddenly it all made sense."

There was something about the picture that prompted Burnett to share it on social media. "It's not so much that he wandered into someone else's home; he's done that often enough. It was the way he took it further, and stood in the window, looking out at the whole street, as if to brazenly flaunt his disrespect for boundaries and other people's personal spaces," Burnett said.

Cats might be considered more guarded than most pets, but the reality is they are usually pretty comfortable around strangers; a little too comfortable, in fact.

A study published in the journal Animal Behavior and Cognition in 2021 highlighted how cats not only don't avoid strangers but are often drawn to ones who behave badly around their owners.

Researchers had a cat watch their owner trying to open a box while two strangers sat either side of her. After a certain point, the owner turned to one of the strangers and asked them for help.

Two different scenarios then played out. Firstly, one of the strangers helped open the box. Then the test was repeated, only this time the other stranger refused. In both scenarios, the stranger not directly involved in the interaction sat passively doing nothing in response.

Then the two strangers offered the cat a treat, while researchers waited to see which the feline approached first. Scientists were eager to see if the cat preferred to take food from the stranger who had offered to help.

A previous version of the test involving dogs had seen canines refuse to take food from the stranger who did not help. However, in this instance, the cats had no qualms about approaching the unhelpful person.

Burnett said of Pickle: "If he were human, it would be like he'd broken into someone's home, and then asked them if he could have their security-camera footage to put on his Instagram."

Not that Burnett begrudges his cat's occasional escapades, given the tough start to life the tabby had. "Pickle was one of several rescue kittens that resulted from a pregnant stray," he said.

Pickle caught their eye at the shelter after climbing up to a shelf and diving head-first into an empty sack, becoming trapped in the process. Burnett said the tabby's lack of fear has resulted in several incidents like the one involving his neighbor's house.

Pickle has turned up at their son's school on at least eight separate occasions and has been known to leave them surprises. "I woke up early one morning and noticed that Pickle had left a disemboweled mouse on the garden path," Burnett said. "I later went to retrieve it, only to find that the dead mouse had since been replaced by a slab of raw salmon. To this day, we have no idea where he got that from. Similarly, I woke up one morning to find half a fried cod next to his food bowl. The nearest chip shop is about 2 miles away."

Other highlights have included pretending to be stuck in a tree at the local school only to jump down when he noticed Burnett carrying a big ladder and escaping from his carrier while on route to the vets in the car.

"Pickle proceeded to try and change gears, open windows and doors, and put the handbrake on for the remainder of the 20-minute journey," Burnett said. "People could have genuinely died."

Pickle has also been known to get in fights with foxes and stands accused of bullying the dog next door. There has also been an incident involving a parrot that is too much to get into now.

Despite these misdemeanors, Pickle possesses a rebellious spirit that, while occasionally veering into dangerous territory, keeps all of his family amused. If anything encapsulated that best, it's this photo.

Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.