9Lives is the name of a brand of cat food

Cat food

Cat food is food intended for consumption by cats.As with all species, cats have requirements for specific dietary nutrients, rather than ingredients. Certain nutrients, including many vitamins and amino acids, are degraded by the temperatures, pressures and chemical treatments used during...

, owned by Del Monte Foods

Del Monte Foods

Del Monte Foods is an American food production and distribution company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Del Monte Foods is one of the country's largest producers, distributors and marketers of branded food and pet products for the U.S. retail market, generating approximately $3.6...

. It is best known for its mascot, Morris

Morris the Cat

Morris the Cat is the advertising mascot for 9Lives brand cat food, appearing on its packaging and in many of its television commercials. A large orange tabby tom, he is "the world's most finicky cat", and prefers only 9Lives brand, making this preference clear by means of humorously sardonic...

. 9Lives has four varieties of dry food (Daily Essentials, Plus Care, Growing Years and Active Formula), and five lines of wet food in various flavors. The company also promotes adoption of cats from animal shelter

Animal shelter

An animal shelter is a facility that houses homeless, lost, or abandoned animals; primarily a large variety of dogs and cats.Parrots, for example, are the third most common pet owned by people...

s. In 2006, 9Lives kicked off the inaugural tour of Morris' Million Cat Rescue, a nationwide bus tour to encourage local cat adoption.

The company has recently added a new cat to their advertising, Li'l Mo an orange kitten who has been adopted from a Los Angeles animal shelter putatively by Morris himself.

For a period of time in the 1970s and 1980s, 9Lives used Sylvester the Cat

Sylvester (Looney Tunes)

Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr., Sylvester the Cat or simply Sylvester, is a fictional character, a three-time Academy Award-winning anthropomorphic Tuxedo cat in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies repertory, often chasing Tweety Bird, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper...

 from the Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

cartoon series in its advertising. These ads usually consisted of Sylvester trying to get to his box of 9Lives dry food while avoiding Hector the Bulldog. Sylvester would always succeed in luring the dog away so he could get to his food, but would always find himself a target again by the end of the commercial. Sylvester would always call 9Lives dry food "worth riskin' your life for." (Sylvester never appeared in commercials for 9Lives canned cat food and was eventually replaced by Morris for dry food commercials.)