Larry the Cat has successfully chased off another nuisance, but instead of a mouse or fellow cat, this time he had to deal with a much larger interloper.
Larry has been the longtime Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom at 10 Downing Street — also known as the Prime Minister’s home and office in London.
And while he’s historically been great at keeping rodents and other cats away, he recently went toe-to-toe paw-to-paw with an animal twice his size — and won!
“Fox off,” reads a tweet from Larry’s unofficial Twitter account earlier this week, alongside a video of the fisticuffs (paw-a-cuffs?).
Keeping his cool under pressure while he faces off against the large canine, Larry can be seen calmly walking the fox away from the premises. The persistent fox tries to stick around, and Larry is seen bounding after him, tail up in the air, before a final stare-down forces the fox into retreat.
According to Larry’s official bio on the British government’s website, he “spends his days greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality.”
He’s the office’s first honorary and official chief mouser and has served prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and now, Liz Truss.
According to his bio, he was adopted by the office in 2011 from one of the U.K.’s oldest animal shelters, the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.
Larry’s Twitter account seemed to express some remorse on behalf of the feline for chasing away the fox and later shared information from Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) on how to look after foxes.
The RSPCA says foxes are one of England’s most common animals and as many as 100,000 are killed on U.K. roads each year.