Published Sep 11, 2025
@duhhdariann / Tiktok.com
We know that our cats can be crafty little scammers, especially when it comes to playing the role of starving ferals when they know darned well they have eaten plenty already.
One especially devious black cat named Goose, whose shenanigans went viral on TikTok, is saying: “Hold my broth!”
This shorthaired cat in Louisiana, who gets fed in the morning and the evening, somehow conned his family’s toddler into going to the food container, opening it, and giving him a few extra scoops of food in the middle of the day!
The toddler’s mother, Darian Portune, discovered Goose’s scheme after investigating why food was often in his bowl, even though Goose would eat all of his morning and evening meals. Portune blamed her husband for a while and claimed he was overfeeding their cat. But then, she caught Goose red-pawed in the act of herding the 20-month-old named Rivers to the food bin.
She caught the moment in a video, where you hear Portune at the end say: “Ok, that’s enough!” The video, which plays Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” in the background, shows the cat yawning with this text: “You look happier.”
And then, the response from Goose: “Thanks, I trained my toddler to fill my food bowl when it’s empty. Took our parents a couple weeks to realize.”
I think Portune described Goose’s sly cattitude well in the video, which is posted on her Instagram page at @duhhdariann and has more than 128.8K views. Check it out, and you will see many more videos of the famous Goose you can enjoy!
Portune exclaimed her cat’s genius, underhanded ways to Newsweek.
@duhhdariann / Tiktok.com
“They play together a lot, so I didn’t think much of it until I heard his food container open,” she said. “I didn’t think my husband would believe me, so I started videoing when I noticed Rivers was starting to scoop food. Over the next couple of days, I watched the cat continue to try to herd Rivers to his food area any time his bowl was empty.”
The parents joke that Rivers and Goose are “partners in crime.”
“Rivers is in a phase of copying every little thing we do, and he’s normally near me when I feed Goose,” Portune told Newsweek. “As for Goose, he acts as though he’s starving if his bowl goes below a certain amount (typical cat behavior.) He was basically using the toddler for a midday meal.”
Viewers who chuckled at the funny cat video contributed many witty comments. “Finally the human kitten is useful,” one TikTok user wrote.
“Y’all know cats domesticated themselves, right?” another user said.
“Good, little human, good. Tomorrow we start on opening the tins,” someone commented. (I can just hear a cat saying that!)
Now that Goose has been busted, the fraud is up. Portune moved the food container. Sorry, Goose, you’ll have to stick with two meals a day! Although we wouldn’t be surprised if Goose and Rivers came up with some other clever operation.
Goose is demonstrating just how intelligent cats are. I have often described cats as “street smart,” in that they are perceptive and difficult to fool, and they even have a way of outsmarting us humans sometimes.
We explore the intelligence of cats in an article that looks at many factors, including a 2016 study that found that cats have nearly twice as many cortical neurons in the cerebral cortex of the brain than dogs do. While this doesn’t prove anything definitively, it does suggest that our felines are highly intelligent animals.
Melina Grin / Cats.com
Just observing our cats shows us that they have strong problem-solving skills, which is what Goose was doing. (Problem: He wanted more food. Solution: Manipulate the kid.) I have had some unusually food-aggressive cats that seem to be able to open any cabinet, even high ones, in order to get to the food that is restricted to meal times. That takes some ingenuity!
If you have a cat that pulls the “I’m so hungry!” act like Goose, and the cat is being fed adequately, mention the ravenous appetite to your veterinarian. Sometimes, cats have an excessive appetite due to a physical condition like hyperthyroidism; or, maybe you are not feeding enough or the best kind of food for your cat. Often, though, you will find out that your cat is just a little piggie.
