Showing posts with label appearance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label appearance. Show all posts

Tuesday, 11 July 2023

Great looking cat with a moustache is unwanted at a Blue Cross shelter, UK

This is very strange. The cat's name is Miko and she has a stunning appearance. It's the kind of appearance that would normally attract a lot of attention with people applying to adopt her quickly. If people want a cat that looks interesting this is the kind of cat you would want to adopt. But we are told by the Blue Cross charity in Hertfordshire, UK that Miko has received no applications for her adoption. She appears to be unwanted. She has no behavioural problems and is described as a confident girl.

Interesting-looking Miko is unwanted but why? She is 10 and healthy with a nice character. Image: Blue Cross.

There appears to be no health problems as far as I am aware (please check with Blue Cross). She looks a little bit overweight in the picture but nothing really to report. The key factor might be this: she is 10 years of age. This is not particularly old but it is middle-aged towards old age by some people's standards. 

The reason is that older cats are more likely to suffer from ill-health and you have to deal with the end-of-life complications and pressures sooner. But older cats can be great companions too as they 'know the ropes'.

It is known that older cats are harder to rehome than for example kittens. But you would have thought that her appearance would make up for that age barrier. If you are interested, please click on this link to go to the Blue Cross website to meet Miko on that website.

Location: Kimpton Btm, Hitchin SG4 8EU, UK.

Her description is as follows:

Meet the gorgeous Miko

Miko is a cat who is full of quirk and personality, she has stolen the hearts of all the cattery staff here at Blue Cross Hertfordshire. Miko is a confident girl but she can take a while to build a bond with a new person, however once she has, she is affectionate on her terms and might even give you some licks on your hand. Despite her age, she is full of life and enjoys playing with feathers and rod toys. She especially loves chewing on some cat grass!

Miko is looking for a home with a lovely garden for her to sunbathe in. She needs a home with only adults or older teenagers and no other pets. Miko is a truly unique girl, who likes things her way and will make an amazing companion to someone looking for a bit of company and a furry friend to share their life with.

Thursday, 3 November 2022

Ben the Vet promotes the humble moggy

Ben the Vet likes to tell the world through social media (TikTok) the breeds of dog that he would not adopt and the 4 cat breeds that he would avoid. He has now moved onto the next logical step which is to tell the world the kind of cat that he would adopt, and I am pleased to announce that he prefers moggies to any other type of cat. Every cat caregiver concerned about cat health would agree with Ben.

Tabby cat
My cat. A humble tabby non-purebred. Image: MikeB

And the reason is that random bred cats are, just that, random bred. There is no selective breeding. There is no artificial selection. Random bred cats are created through natural selection or as natural as it can get in an artificial human environment!

And therefore, they are healthier than purebred cats due to genetic diversity which leads to the inevitable conclusion that they live longer on average. I say 'on average for the obvious reason that sometimes, individual purebred cats can have long life spans.

He mentions four cat breeds that he would not adopt but he could have mentioned more. He has selected these breeds because they have inherited genetic health problems. You can read about them by clicking on this link.

And the same goes for the dog breeds. The point is that Ben is concerned about selective breeding which perpetuates the introduction of recessive genetic mutations into cats and dogs.

I realise that it is unpopular to discuss this topic. There are many die hard pedigree cat and dog afficionados who refuse to see the health aspects of the breeds. I understand their opinion, but it is essentially wrong. 

Breeders select foundation cats and dogs that are very handsome, and which are in line with the breed standard. They don't tend to select cats and dogs from which to breed which are inherently healthy. They don't prioritise health when they should be doing this.

Breeders should be prioritising health first, personality second and appearance third. But they prioritise these three elements in the reverse order because they have to stick to the breed standard and that document demands inbred animals often with extreme features.

Ben is a celebrity veterinarian who has a big presence on the social media site TikTok. His full name is Ben Simpson-Vernon. He gets lots of hate online because of his attempts to promote health in companion animals.

He says that: "I would just get a domestic shorthair, otherwise known as a moggy-just your regular, standard, garden variety cat. They're the cat equivalent of a mutt, or a mongrel, so on average they are going to be less inbred than your average pedigreed cat. And they're just lovely."

The problem with humankind in respect of cat and dog companions and selecting one is that people are obsessed with appearance. People like to possess beautiful objects. And when it comes to companion animals, they tend to be more interested in the appearance of the animal than their character. This feeds into selective breeding by breeders for appearance.

In my view, it is a human weakness to be obsessed by appearance and there is a moral duty (I'm preaching - sorry) to create purebred cat companions that are as healthy as possible. This does not happen.

The cat associations do not help because they write breed standards which leads to unhealthy cats e.g., the contemporary Persian with the flat face which distorts the anatomy.

There are other breeds which are bred to extreme which in turn affects their health. And there are many breeds based upon genetic mutations resulting in an abnormal but interesting appearance. These mutations have an impact upon the anatomy of the cat which is detrimental to their health and I'm referring in this instance to the well-known Scottish Fold. There are other breeds.

I am pleased that Ben is promoting the humble moggy. That is the way it should be.

Monday, 16 August 2021

Can you detect a faint smile on this rehabilitated feral cat?

This is Sad Boy. As you can see, he had a hard life as an unneutered feral cat. In the photograph on the left his face is tense, his eyes are closed slightly, his nose is badly scarred through fighting, and his mouth points slightly downwards. All in all, his face as a feral cat indicates the difficulty in surviving.

Can you detect a faint smile on this rehabilitated feral cat?
Can you detect a faint smile on this rehabilitated feral cat? Photo: Reddit user: u/PoetsSquareCats.

Move forward a couple or three months and thanks to the care of an individual (we don't know her or his name), he is rehabilitated. Sad Boy appears to have been a semi-domesticated feral cat because he looks domesticated in the second photograph implying that it didn't take that long to integrate him into the human lifestyle.

What is noticeable is the lightness in his face. I even detect, I believe, a faint smile. His eyes are slightly more open and the tenseness in his face has disappeared.

Also, his jowly cheeks have disappeared. This is because, I presume, he has been castrated (neutered) and when you do that the production of testosterone is more or less completely stopped (but not entirely as it happens as the adrenal glands produce this hormone). This shrinks the cheeks and you end up with this slightly less masculine appearance.

The two photographs help us to focus on a domestic cat's facial expressions. I suspect that a lot of people think that domestic cats have no facial expressions. They are used to seeing the same impassive face every day. This leads people into believing that domestic cats are aloof. It is not actually true. They do have facial expressions and they are not aloof. Pain is certainly reflected in a cat's face. That is been established scientifically and a cell phone app has been created to read a cat's face so that the owner can better understand their mood.

Perhaps, the subtle changes in the expression of a cat when their mood lightens as reflected in this pair of photographs, is due to the fact that they suffer pain with greater stoicism than humans. Humans express their emotions almost wildly sometimes through facial expressions. There is a stark difference between felines and humans in this regard.

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

The paradox and unusualness of the lion

The lion is the most famous cat in the world (with the tiger) and at the same time the least typical member of the cat family. While other cat species are solitary hunters, the lion is a cooperative group hunter or at least the lionesses are. Male lions like to hunt alone in denser vegetation using the stalk and ambush technique whereas lionesses, as you've seen in video, cooperate with wing lionesses and a central lioness when chasing prey.

Male lions in a coalition. Photo: Daily Mail. These are black maned lions. The dark mane is attractive to females.
Male lions in a coalition. Photo: Daily Mail. These are black maned lions. The dark mane is attractive to females.

This difference in the behaviour of the female and male lion is also shown in the quite stark difference between the male and female in terms of appearance. Most cats do not have great gender differences in appearance. 

There will be size differences but other than that they look very similar. But with lions the huge mane of the male sets him apart from the maneless female (some females have manes). Lionesses prefer males with dark manes. They presumably sense that they are more likely to have better genes and more able to create a healthy family.

Black knob at the end of a lion's tail and a cub who wants to play with it. Photo: Pinterest.
Black knob at the end of a lion's tail and a cub who wants to play with it. Photo: Pinterest.

And unusualness about the lion is that it is the only cat species to have a knob-like tuft of dark hair at the tip of its tail.

The paradox of the lion is that it is both the most popular animal in the world or at least in the top three. It is also the most admired with the tiger and yet trophy hunters seek to destroy it for their entertainment. And the rarer the individual lion the keener trophy hunters are to shoot it dead. It's a great paradox that there is both admiration and the desire to destroy present in the minds of these people at the same time.

And it also appears that the lion is both in the top 10 of animals loved and hated. It is loved because of its power, courage, aggressivity, dignified bearing and handsome appearance but it is also hated because it is a killer of nice animals, pleasant animals such as antelopes and zebra. The lion is a brilliant killer with huge amounts of aggressivity.

Our admiration for the lion is tinged by a fear of its ability to kill. The general consensus is that the lion wins in a lion versus tiger fight but genuine fights between these species are rare because they live in different parts of the world.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Why are cats so cute?

Why are cats so cute? Answer: because they look like babies. They have large eyes and in general round heads. The cutest cat is probably the Scottish Fold Munchkin - flat ears so the head is even rounder than normal combined with short legs.

Scottish Fold Munchkin - super cute.
The behaviour of kittens and young adults is also cute because they tend to be foolish and get into trouble. Just like kids. I don't find kids cute by the way. Quite the opposite.

People consider babies cute. Once again, I don't. But the general opinion is that they are cute because adults need to be drawn to them to nurture them. Cuteness is an attractant. That's my theory anyway.

Monday, 7 July 2014

World’s Ugliest Cat?

World’s Ugliest Cat?

Ugliest cat on the planet?
Is there such a cat? It is unfair ;) Although he is pretty ugly. But a cat this conventionally ugly can actually be attractive to many people because his appearance is special and different. He's more cute than ugly. That is probably the consensus of opinion.



This cat must carry a genetic mutation similar to the one that creates the Sphynx and Don Sphynx. In fact in appearance "Uggs" is more like the Peterbald from Russia which is often a partially bald cat but not in this way. The mane of hair needs grooming. Perhaps they leave it deliberately ungroomed to enhance the ugliness.

Friday, 4 April 2014

Andean Mountain Cat Camera Trap Photographs

This is a video of camera trap photographs of the elusive Andean Mountain cat. This is the most endangered wild cat species in the Americas. Almost the only way to photograph this cat is through camera traps although Jim Sanderson has photographed this cat with a regular camera as far as I am aware. Nearly all the photographs that one sees of this cat species on the Internet are by Jim Sanderson. You see the same photographs over and over again because there are so few photographs of this cat. Jim Sanderson PhD is the world's foremost small wild cat species expert.


This cat is about the same size as a regular sized domestic cat. However, you would not mistake this cat for a domestic cat.  The wild look and the thick tail are notable differences. The Andean mountain cat tail is thicker and more functional. The tail of this cat is used for balance negotiating rocky slopes etc. in the Andes. The coat is pretty much a regular tabby coat so this is a tabby cat but a rather special one as there are only about 2000 of them on the planet. Thank God they occupy remote places because if they didn't there would be none left already.

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

African Golden Cat Video

African Golden Cat - from the video.

This is a truly remarkable video of this elusive small wild cat. Until we saw this video there were a few limited photographs circulating around the Internet. That was it. We can now see the cat on film.



We can see how well spotted the cat is on the lower flanks and undersides and how the coat changes quite dramatically on the cat's back. The color is quite dense and dark on the cat's back. The coat is very short. It looks like a single coat; very tight, in complete contrast to coats of cats in much colder climates.

The head is quite long. The body very muscular and not slender (c.f. the serval for example). The tail is relatively short. This is not a tree dwelling cat but a ground hunter.

It is also surprising that we are only beginning to see what this cat looks like in 2011. It's habitat is being eroded.

Saturday, 13 August 2011

Lilac Pointed British Shorthair

His name is Lionel and he is a lilac pointed British Shorthair cat. He looks magnificent in the snow.

Although the British Shorthair is well known for its blue (grey) coat the cat associations allow a wide range of coat types and pointing is one of them.

I find that there is a very fine differences sometimes between blue pointing and lilac pointed. Lionel looks like he has blue pointing!

Silver Classic Tabby British Shorthair Kitten

I think I have shown a picture of this really nice looking cat before. This time the coat is more visible. This is a classic or blotched (as opposed to a mackerel - striped) tabby coat. The background is silver.




Silver tabby British Shorthair - Photo by warper

See a page with lots of pictures and explanations on the tabby cat coat.

Thursday, 11 August 2011

British Shorthair Characteristics

Here are just three physical characteristics as specified by the CFA breed standard relating to the head area as set against a show cat who is in a cage sitting in his litter for emotional comfort (smells like him).




British Shorthair breed standard nose, head and eyes - Photo: by Daisyree Bakker

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