I was falsely led to brighten this photo in Paint Shop Pro because my monitor at home is apparently slack when it comes to brightness (even though the brightness is turned all the way up). I was horrified to discover the detrimental results when viewing from my monitor at work, but it was too late to change it since voting had already begun. Oh well, it was my first submission and a learning experience.
I gave this a bit lower score than it may have gotten otherwise, because for my tastes it is cropped a bit too small. especially since the cat is mostly dark with little highlight. It took me a few seconds to figure out it was even a cat, at first my eyes saw a pig! Don't ask me why! ... so my suggestion would be to allow a bit more of the cat to be visible.