After playing a practical joke on her cat, Tiktoker Natalia Hurtado de Mendoza recorded the feline’s reaction incognito and posted it on social media.
To prank her beloved grey kitten, Natalia Hurtado went the simple route. The concept was straightforward: she wanted to convince her cat of the presence of another pet in their home.
First, Natalia printed up a cat’s image and glued it up in her hallway. She then set up the camera to film the real feline’s response to the poster.
In the resulting footage, Natalia’s grey cat is walking along the hall when she suddenly noticed an unfamiliar face; the moggy freezes at the stranger’s sight.  While facing away, she cautiously makes her way toward the intruder.
It takes her some time, but the grey tomcat musters the courage to come closer. At least close enough to detect that the other cat smells funny.
Natalia’s watchful kitty starts to pick up on the paper scent.
Round two and winners of the cat prank
Following her first inspection, the cat returned a second time out of pure precaution, but this time her approach is completely different. Natalia’s puss assaults the paper cat.
In the end, the paper portrait that Natalia had affixed to the hallway wall is left completely ravaged. There’s no mistaking the winner in this battle.
Natalia posted the confrontation video on her Tiktok, with the famed Mission Impossible main theme playing in the background.
At the end of the clip, the cat shows her mother a satisfied grin and says, “It’s okay Mom, I protected you,” in subtitles.
Since its upload on September 2, over 8.4 million people have seen the hilarious footage, with more than a half million giving it a well-deserved like.
In addition, commenters admitted the realistic paper cat also fooled them at first.
@AliceWar1988 revealed:
“I literally thought that pic was your cat at first”
User @Shannon mentioned Natalia’s kitten’s dramatic reaction, saying:
“It’s always the smokey gray ones that are the most dramatic 😂😂 love it!!”
Many viewers are now planning to pull a similar prank on their own pets. In this manner, @Elouise told another user:
“@tisha_0711 you gotta do this to Wickham”
Hopefully, those pets will react as courageously as their predecessor. Or, it could go terribly wrong, you never know with tomcats!
In a meantime, Natalia Hurtado and her grey feline get to enjoy their newfound fame.