Cats and York

I am never a big fan of cats, but some of (or most of) my friends are.
I do not dislike cats but always have partiality for dogs and still keep 2 doggies back home in Taiwan.
It seems to me that dogs are passionate and very expressive of feeling, while cats are more reserved about their emotion and appear to be rather quiet.
However, I found cats are passionate in a very different way. They seem to resist any living creature nearby but in fact attract more attention. I suspect it is this attention that cats always enjoy in secret. In a sense they are more like human beings. Dogs seem to be angels in fairy tales to me.

There are some imitations of cats in the cityscape of York.
I saw a picture of one of the imitations in A's guidebook to York last November. It's my first time to notice them, and I couldn't believe they are imitations. For example, that one on the roof after a pigeon on St. Michael's square, I thought they were real or at least the pigeon was, but neither of them is.
When I saw them in reality a couple of days later, I was very amused by the sense of humour of the city.
Then in the following months, I spotted another cat in Gilly Gate.
I do remember there is still another on a wall near the river.

The spotty cat in the picture is real. I always see her in the courtyard in front of K's flat.
Those beautiful spots nicely rest on the curve of her body. She is fairly shy but adorable.
It seems that York city is very friendly with cats, or at least one of the city-planners is.

Or does cat have anything to do with the history of York?
I cannot make any connection so far.