Is the cat going up or down the stairs?

It doesn't really matter whether the cat is going up or down because as soon as it gets where it is going, it will turn around and go back where it came from.

I agree

How clever, boggles, I think you're right!

The staircase etc. is just a trompe l'oeil.

Neither up nor down. It's on the level.

I would say going down. The stairs appear to show an overhanging lip. If the cat was going up the stairs the step would have a raised lip at the end of the step which would present the steps with a dangerous trip hazard.

I have copied the image into Photoshop and looked at it at a high magnification, and I can see fuzziness in a halo around the edges of cat's tail and back, which you can get when you weld two images together in Photoshop. does anyone else have Photoshop and can do the same thing? Or any other photo editing app which can go in close to the pixels?

Yes, I agree abut the steps. But the position of the cat's foreleg in the photo in question looks more as though it's going up, to me.

It it's been photoshopped it could be either...

The stairs rise from the viewer up to the lighter area above. You can't see anything else up there because the camera is held so low that you only see sky. If the camera were at the top of the stairs and the cat coming up to it, you would see the ground behind the cat.

As Crun says, the stair edges overlap the risers, and the kick guards at the edges of each stair are on the treads, not sideways on the risers.

Photo of a cat walking down steps without tail raised (just out of interest!)

marketplace.veer.com/stock-photo/black-cat-walking-down-stairs-1087848

Jo1book.

Could the cat be going down, but the stairs are up crun? Ie a photoshopped picture?

Shysal Such a clever animal. He must have been trained, don't you think. My husband sent it to me (across 2 rooms) because I hate walking.

I can count at least five reasons why it's down:

* Cats stand on legs that are vertical, not horizontal.
* Cats lift their weight on a bent leg not a straight one.
* If the cats was taking a step up it's left front leg wouldn't be reaching all the way across to the riser at the back of the tread.
* The tread of a step overhangs the riser, not the other way around.
* The kick guards on the wall are at the ends of the treads where feet are placed, not at the ends of the risers.

Jo1book, I have tears of laughter running down my face! I began to worry that the cat in the video was ill, until I reached the end.

Up

Down

Up, definitely maybe. Up to sharpen his claws on a pristine carpet now he's ruined the one downstairs, and then to cough furballs all over that bedroom he's not allowed to enter.

Down

Down. I too noticed the overhang on the edge of the steps which would never be on a tread.

Up! Look at the bottom of the stairs. If it was going down the landing would barely be visible.

He could be walking backwards upstairs !.

As soon as my eyes saw the picture, I thought up. But my brain switched to down after the split second. Much like a switch in an optical illusion. Then looking at it some more, I think
The cat looks like he is going down.
The stairs look like up after the first glance.
I say up.

Is there a definite answer though?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sy1MDHZ27M&feature=youtu.be

Have a look at this for a clever cat

Its up for me just by looking at the cat's stride pattern. Also I've seen cats trying to reverse downstairs and they don't look like that!! Its possibly a photoshopped picture?

Definitely down (probably). He looks hungry, and who feeds their cat upstairs.