49 Incredibly Cute Photos Of Cats Doing Their Cat Things In The Most Amusing Way

There's a dedicated online community whose members share photos of their (or other people's) cats simply doing their incredibly important feline business. As of today, the community has 382K officially registered cat lovers, and we invite you to take a look at the best pics taken by these folks.

Today, there are approximately 600 million domestic cats in the world, divided into about 200 various breeds. However, the number actually varies depending on the international felinological organization that registers breeds.

For example, the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes only about 45 breeds, while The International Cat Association (TICA) recognizes 71. These discrepancies are explained by the fact that some distinguishing characteristics are considered sufficient to constitute a separate breed, while others are not.

In any case, any felinologist around the world, regardless of whether they consider a particular breed officially recognized or not, will readily tell you that all cats, pedigreed or not, are simply beautiful and amazing. Period.

It must be said that grateful humanity, over the years and centuries of living with cats under one roof, has immortalized them in numerous masterpieces of art. It's enough to recall, for example, T. S. Eliot's poem cycle "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," which later inspired the brilliant musical "Cats" (and, alas, the utterly poor recent film adaptation).

At the beginning of the 21st century, an entire kindergarten designed in the shape of a giant cat even appeared in the German city of Karlsruhe. The two-story building completely imitates the figure of a cat lying on the ground. Kids enter along a red carpet symbolizing a protruding tongue, and the roof is covered with a special textured coating imitating cat fur.

What is this, if not a manifestation of people's incredible respect for their longtime partners, friends, and companions?

Furthermore, some modern traditions associated with cats are, in fact, humanity's attempt to justify the sins committed by our ancestors against cats. For example, the Belgian city of Ypres has held a traditional spring festival called Kattenstoet, dedicated to cats, for several decades now.

It sounds very cute, doesn't it? Yes, if you don't know that in Ypres in the Middle Ages, inquisitors "fought witches" by simply throwing cats out of the windows of the city tower. And today, specially dressed actors throw plush cat figurines from those same windows onto the square, into the hands of the delighted tourists.

To at least partially atone for our guilt towards the fluffy creatures who suffered so much in the past, and to earn a little money from tourism as well, at least, Kattenstoet is visited by thousands of tourists from all over the world every year.

In any case, a picture is worth a thousand words, so no cat-related story can actually replace simply looking at wonderful, cute and hilarious photos of them. So now please feel free to scroll this selection to the very end, enjoy these awesome fluffy furballs, and maybe add your own dedicated kitty pics in the comments below.