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A brown tabby American Shorthair with wide green eyes sits beside a tipped-over holiday cookie tin and scattered cookies. 4 / 31

A Tabby Cat Froze When the Holiday Cookie Tin Hit the Floor

AI imageamerican shorthaircookiesholiday

The brown tabby has gone absolutely still, with wide green eyes and ears turned out like little satellite dishes. Next to her, a red holiday tin lies on its side, its lid on the floor, and star-shaped and tree-shaped cookies spill out onto a pale speckled floor. A bit of morning sun lights up her stripes, and her whiskers are fanned out as if she just caught a surprising sound.

American Shorthairs are sturdy, easygoing cats with a long history as working mousers, so they are curious and good at investigating anything new. Holiday cookies are not a great cat snack, because sugar, butter, chocolate, and some spices can upset a cat's stomach or be harmful, and cats cannot taste sweetness the way people do anyway. If your cat eats cookies, call your vet and describe what was in them. A tin with a firm lid, stored in a closed cabinet, will keep the holiday cheer where it belongs.

We will call her Maple. She looks like she is in the middle of a very tricky decision, which is whether to make a run for it. Her pose says she is innocent, while the cookie crumbs say otherwise. The holiday baking might need to be redone, but the tabby's expression will be remembered for a long time. Meanwhile, the cookies sit there, still waiting to be rescued or at least swept up.

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