This is our cat, Tori. She rolls up to the back door every morning and again in the afternoon about three times a week, meowing and tapping on the window. Don’t be fooled. She does not want to come in.

In the morning, she is meowing for food. But not food for her. Food for our other cat, who waits like a purr queen at the bowl around the corner and out of sight. Tori prefers the meat from tiny voles or birds, sometimes a light snack of moth.

Tori’s nickname is Slinks, because if you try to touch her, she edges just out of the way so you hover hand her like a photo shoot with a celebrity.

If you do manage to touch her, she gives you stink-eye. She is not down with that cuddly stuff. She is Cat!

The reason Tori has called you out with incessant meowing is because she wants to pet you. She worries we are not getting enough love. You must stand perfectly still while she does this. Don’t get bored and go inside, or she’ll howl at the door until you return. Don’t try to reciprocate, she will slink. She will do the ritual of circling you thirteen times while petting you with her head. Because you need love to live. Or maybe because she needs to establish that she is the caretaker around these parts.

Sometimes you will catch a vulnerable expression on her face, like after all the petting she has done for you, her tough exterior might finally be cracking and she, too, could accept a pet.

But if you try, she will leave without so much as a cat fart in your direction, and she will go scout the perimeter.