Why Paint Cats

Why Paint Cats
Why Paint Cats
	Front cover of Why Paint Cats
Author(s)	Burton Silver
Illustrator	Heather Busch
Country	New Zealand
Language	English
Genre(s)	Comedy
Publisher	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date	1994
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	96 pp
ISBN	0297833510
OCLC Number	31376281

Why Paint Cats is a comedy book written by New Zealand author Burton Silver and illustrator Heather Busch. The book describes the practice of "cat painting" in art and history (that is, decorating cats with paint, as distinguished from painting portraits of cats). It is one of three cat art books, including Why Cats Paint and Dancing with Cats.

This satirical book inspired much confusion since its publication, from the perspectives of both those who wished to learn where or how they might have their own cats "painted", and also from those who consider the concept unethical and abusive to the animal. These wishes and complaints were, however, unfounded.

The book is a deliberate parody of books on art and a social comment on the extreme liberties taken with pets by some pet owners in the name of fashion; it was never intended to be regarded as a serious text. The cat images were done with a photo editing program and there is no paint on any of the cats pictured. But whereas New Zealanders had the advantage of knowing Burton Silver's previous tongue-in-cheek work (most notably through his former weekly comic strip Bogor), many overseas readers were largely unaware of the spoof and took the book at face value^{[citation needed]}.

The iPhone app "CatPaint" was inspired by this book.

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