A Facebook call-out for the city’s craziest cats this week yielded some weird and wonderful results, but Middy may just take the cake. 

While other readers’ cats may swan about in bow ties or bark instead of meowing, eight-year-old Middy is a feline Peter Pan who has never outgrown his playful kitten days. 

Owner Pip Ash said she had never known Middy to drink water from his bowl, but he had been caught drinking from running taps, dishes piled in the sink, the neighbour’s pool, the sprinkler and even from the toilet. 

Miss Ash said Middy “gets the devil in him” and sprints from one end of the house to the other at lightning speed and flings himself into shopping bags. 

He scrambles after torchlight up the walls and would cling to the screen door, which nearly earned him the name “Velcro”. Middy had been dumped out the front of the Small Animal Clinic on Marius Street before he became a part of the Ash household. 

Tamworth Veterinary Hospital receptionist Deborah Green said cats are a big part of Tamworth family life, but owners can hold some misconceptions about their pets. 

“Cats have all got individual personalities, they can give you just as much as you give them,” Mrs Green said.

“They can be extremely affectionate, but they also need their space – sometimes you’ve just got to leave them alone.”

She said she thought it was important for there to be two cats in a household so the pair could interact. 

Royal Canin surveyed more than 500 cat owners and found almost all think their cat spends most of the day sleeping, and 80 per cent consider flavour to be the most important factor when purchasing food for cats. 

But texture and smell, not taste, make food appealing for cats. 

“Cats have less than 500 taste buds, as opposed to 10,000 in humans,” Royal Canin pet nutrition advisor Casey Gill said.

“Fish is always a good thing for a cat because it’s a very strong smell.”