I love my cat dearly, but he definitely qualifies as a mean kitty. Thumper needs his human affection on a daily basis and can cuddle sweetly like a little angel…but one thing I learned soon after I acquired him was NEVER to try to brush him. After one early session, I emerged from the bathroom (where I had locked myself in with him) sweaty, frustrated, and minus about a pint of blood from the too-numerous-to-count claw and bite marks. Needless to say, I now only attempt this particular death-defying act when I absolutely have to, and then only in rubber gloves and wielding the brush in one hand and a spare toilet plunger in the other (picture a lion tamer and you have the idea).

Even when he’s cuddling, I have to be on the alert. Whenever we’re sitting watching TV or a movie, he’ll climb into my lap and immediately lapse into a purring, eye-glazed coma…but I learned not to be fooled. After some indeterminate time, when his brain receives some urgent signal from Mars, he instantly jolts awake and uses my lap as a living launch pad – from the one unfortunate occasion when I was wearing shorts, I now have a claw-shaped souvenir scar on my thigh. God knows what my doctor must think.