An Amsterdam cat is going viral on TikTok. Nimis lives on a houseboat and wears a yellow life jacket for safety. When neighbors started referring to him as the neighborhood police officer, owner Lydia Faber decided to make it official and add the police badge to his jacket. Some of officer kitty’s TikTok videos have over 4.5 million views.

Faber started making videos of her cat and posted them on TikTok as a fun way to communicate with her nieces, who are 8 and 10 years old. “I wasn’t about to start doing funny dances, so I did this,” she said. That makes it all the more surprising that the videos have generated over 4.5 million views on the cat’s TikTok channel, with fans all over the world.

“It’s crazy. It’s crazy! I never expected that, of course. It was just for fun.

Nimis joined Faber on the houseboat when he was just a kitten. Because the canal walls are so high, it can be very dangerous when an animal falls into the water, especially if they panic and canot find a way out. The cat has had his own lifejacket since the start.

“Since he’s so dark, and the vest is so bright, everyone started making fun of the cat,” Faber said. Then she found a set of police decals in a local shop, and applied them to the vest. “He’s been going through the neighborhood, and now everyone thinks of him as our local police agent cat.”

Nimis is now 1.5 years old. He is a very sweet and playful cat who loves being outside, especially in the morning. The cat happily puts on his uniform, and Fabber lets him roam the neighborhood, where he has become a familiar sight.

Nimis seems to like his job as a neighborhood police officer and often poses with colleagues from the Amsterdam police. Locals also like to pause and take a pic if they can convince Nimis to cooperate. Faber laughs when she talks about tourists in the crowded city center, who frequently ask if the cat is really part of the police.

“They ask me if this is for real. I tell them, “Yes, of course. Amsterdam is the first city in the world with its own drug sniffing police cat.” She then points to the cat’s GPS tracker on its collar and tells them, “See this collar? It maintains a constant link with the police department and sends pictures of people found with drugs.” Laughing, she adds, “Sometimes, they don’t even realize I’m making the story up.”

Thus far, the local police department has not contacted Faber to recruit the cat for a project. “That would be nice!”

Image Amsterdam police officers posing with Nimis the police cat in June 2022 – Credit: Tommy & Nimis, police_cat_amsterdam / Instagram – License: All Rights Reserved Image Nimis the police cat speaking to a pedestrian in Amsterdam in June 2022 – Credit: Tommy & Nimis, police_cat_amsterdam / Instagram – License: All Rights Reserved