Why do domestic cats have thinner fur between the ear flaps and the eyes?

The Live Science website asks a similar question but I think the way I have asked the question is more accurate. They ask "why do cats have bald spots in front of their ears?" Well, firstly, these are not bald spots. The hair is thinner between the top of the eyes and the flaps. Secondly, although Live Science claim that small wild cats have the same anatomical characteristics, I don't think they do. On this page you will see a headshot of a serval which is a medium-sized wild cat compared with a headshot of a black domestic cat.

This is typical of the black domestic cat but there are variations:

Black domestic cat showing thinning hair from above the eyes to the base of the ear flap where skin is genuinely bald. The photograph is from Wikipedia and therefore published it under licence.

This is a serval:

Serval headshot showing continuous fur above the eyes and up to the flaps. This photograph, it is believed, as in the public domain.

You will see that the serval's fur between the eyes and the that is pretty solid and it doesn't seem to be thinning to me. Another point worth making is this: every time we discuss this topic we invariably show an image of a black domestic cat. This is because there is greater contrast between the white skin underneath the black fur making the thinning coat more obvious.

Also the fur there tends to stand on end. It is vertical which makes the skin underneath more visible.

Another point worth making is this: I don't think all domestic cats have the same level of thinning fur at this point on their face. It varies which is understandable because domestic cats do very.

But it has to be said that often times we see this characteristic so what causes it? The frustrating answer is that we don't know. I think one reason is that the hair strands tend to sit more vertically at that point which makes the skin below easier to see which could add to the impression that there is partial bolding at that point.

Live Science suggests that the thinning fur at that point is to help with hearing because the sound waves bounce off the head between the eyes and ears before entering near ear canal and impinging upon the eardrum. So this thinning fur maybe to do with improving hearing. That's the best guess so far.

It might have nothing whatsoever to do with hearing, however. It might just be a domestic cat trait because of their domestication. Fur is present to keep the cat warm and to protect them. Arguably, both of these benefits are not strictly required by a well cared for domestic cat. Perhaps, then, it is an evolutionary trait during the 10,000 years of domestication. That is another big guess.

It may be nothing to do with evolution. It could be a problem with thinning coats generally due to their lifestyle and/or diet which might not be entirely appropriate but which is not clear to humans. Perhaps the domestic cat is losing fur and this process is not visible in most areas of the coat because the fur is denser elsewhere than in the area between the top of the eye and ear flaps.

So perhaps this so-called bald patch is a symptom of a generalised inadequate domestic cat caregiving and its variation is because in some homes caregiving a superior than in other homes. We need another study on this to do some tests to get to the bottom of it.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

What are 'laces' in the cat fancy?

Laces refers to white fur on the back feet. You'll see them on some cat breeds like the Birman and Snowshoe. The Birman is a pointed cat with 'gloves' (white fur on the feet to contrast with the dark pointing). These gloves on the hind feet are referred to as laces. In the Birman the laces finish with an inverted V extended half to three-fourths up the hock. The hock is at the end of the foot and the beginning of the leg; the joint between the tarsal bones and tibia of a digitigrade. The cat is a digitigrade (walks on their toes).

Blue point Birman showing gloves and laces. Image: Wikipedia.

Full image credit: By Claudia Zaino - Albafeles Sacred Birmans, CC BY-SA 2.5 it, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2308036.

The cat fancy likes to use these terms that are applicable to human clothes. Another is 'britches' (or pantaloons) which describes the longer fur at the top of the hind legs of some cat breeds.

Are bicolor cats rare, friendly, hypoallergenic?

Tuxedo cats are bicolor cats. This is my darling deceased female. Image: MikeB

Bicolor cats are cats with a coat of two (as in 'bi') colors: white and another colour such as black or ginger. And the 'other colour' can have tabby markings. 

They can be moggies (random-bred cats) or purebred, pedigree cats. It does not matter which. They are common and therefore not rare. Neither are they hypoallergenic but they are friendly if they've been socialised properly and treated well.

No domestic cat is hypoallergenic as the Fel D1 allergen is produced by all domestic cats. Purina LiveClear works pretty well to make a cat acceptable to a person allergic to cats.

'Hypoallergenic' means not producing an allergic reaction in people. About 10% of people are allergic to cats.

The white fur in bicolor cats is caused by the presence of the piebald aka white spotting gene, which affects the migration of pigment producing cells (melanocytes) in the skin during the development of the embryo. 

Where there are no melanocytes there is no melanin in the hair strands. White fur does not contain pigment namely melanin.

It is white because the light from sun or room light passes through it. White light is a mixture of all the colours of the rainbow.

Melanin is a brown/black. If it is diluted, black becomes blue grey and red becomes cream and so on.

The experts rate bicolor cats from 1 to 10 depending on the amount of white fur. Level 1 is black and no white fur while level 10 is all-white. The cat in the picture is about level 4.

If you have a question, ask in a comment and I'll be pleased to respond. I always check comments as I get so few! :)

Level 9 bicolor Cornish Rex. Image in the public domain.

Anal electrocution of animals in fur trade. Protest outside Dior.

LVMH owns Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Dior and other fashion brands. PETA tells me that they refuse to embrace faux fur to meet the demands of informed and compassionate consumers and continue to deal with real fur traders. The fur trade is viciously cruel. 

Anal electrocution of animals in fur trade. Screenshot.

It doesn't matter how you look at it. The whole concept is horrendous to any decent-minded person. China is the biggest producer and they treat their animals appallingly. It's bad enough to take the skin off the back of animals for f**k**g fashion but to kill them in the most appalling way is shameful, unforgivable and the work of the devil.

This protest took place this month. The tweet is dated May 16th, 2023.

PETA tells me that many animals on fur farms "slowly go insane and even self-mutilate from the stress of intensive confinement."

They say that an investigation into Italian fur farms revealed several injured minks as well as dead minks left inside cages to rot. The survivors were killed by gassing.

On a fur farm in Norway, investigators found six fox cubs confined to a cage with their dead and rotting mother. Foxes are devoted parents and mother foxes commit themselves to protecting their babies.

I can go on and on and on about the cruelty of the fur trade and it is the same no matter where you look. And the bosses at LVMH won't stop dealing in real fur. I've just visited a Dior products website. I don't know whether the fur coats were vintage or modern. It didn't say. But I'm told that they still produce fur garments.

What is sad for me, is that videos on YouTube and on Twitter of these protests don't get enough views. This tells me that not enough people are genuinely interested in protecting the animals from this horrendous cruelty. Perhaps Dior and their masters know this. They know that there is an apathy in the world about the fur trade and perhaps even animal abuse generally. That is why they can get away with it and brush the protesters aside.

The only way to beat it is to continually press and harass until they finally change their ways. Some people say that the big fashion houses have already changed their ways but clearly, they haven't. For example, one website forward.com asks "Are anti-fur protesters hopelessly out of touch?"

What on earth do they mean? There article was written in 2018. Protesters against fur farming will never be out of touch until it stops for good. The video on this page is horrendous. There's a guy on a megaphone telling people that the fur farm businesses electrocute the animals who give up their skin by sticking a probe up their anus or their vagina. I mean what in heavens name is going on in the world if humankind allows that to happen? It's just totally sick and all for the sake of fashion.

And here is another thing: the people, normally women who wear these garments are equally to blame. Why aren't they shunning these garments once and for all? They are accessories to what I would argue is a serious and mass crime. Of course, it is not a crime technically in most (all?) countries but in a better world it would have been. It is certainly deeply immoral.

The lady who shaves all her seven cats every month

One of the perhaps minor irritations of living with a domestic cat is that there is normally a lot of fur around the home. It is swept into corners like tumbleweed where you hoover it up. And it's on your clothes and on your bedclothes. You know what I mean. You get used to it. You don't see it. That's the way you deal with cat fur but not everybody has the same opinion. If you have 7 cats the 'problem' is magnified times 7.

Image: MikeB

Some people are very particular and houseproud. They don't want fur lying around upsetting their beautiful vision of an immaculate home. And I sense that a lady whose name is Elida Shiry is one of those people.

She says that she is the mother of seven beautiful fur babies a.k.a. domestic cats! She said that cat hair used to be a problem until she took the drastic step of shaving them all every month.

She used to have Miracle Brushes and lint rollers behind pillows on sofas and in every room. She had her cats professionally groomed every month at great expense: $350. It seems that she had them all barbered in the style of the lion cut.

She decided that it was too expensive and it was all too much trouble so she resolved to shave them all herself. She purchased some grooming shears which I presume means cat or dog grooming parlour professional shears.

As she had never handled grooming shears before she started with her cat that had the best temperament and "slowly learned secrets".

She proudly states that "Today I can do all seven in 1.5 hours. I shave them at the beginning of every month and they love it. They purr, while I shave them. Their coats feel like velvet or chenille and there is no hair in my home."

Comment: she is the first person that I have met on the Internet (not personally) who does this in order to get rid of cat fur. It's a brave thing to do. It's an unusual thing to do. You can't guarantee that the cats will like it or accept it but after a while they probably will and in this instance they did.

A big advantage of giving your cat is a lion cut yourself is that you know what's happening. If you take them to a professional grooming parlour and leave them there while you go shopping, you don't know what is happening. 

You don't know how well or badly they are being treated. There have been some terrible stories of cat deaths at grooming parlours for various reasons one of which was when a dog attacked a Persian cat and another death occurred when the drying cage overheated the cat and killed him.

So, this woman's cats are all hairless - well sort of. I have presumed that they have a lion cut because you can't shave the hair from a cat's head and feet. And in any case, it looks quite attractive.

I guess that once you done it for the first month the next month is much easier because they can't have been much regrowth by then. They'll have a very low-lying (short) coat to shave off. I wonder how the cats feel about it?

That is a question that she appears not to have asked herself. Are the cats upset? Do they feel that they have lost their coat? And how does that affect their psyche? A cat's coat, is after all, a part of their essential anatomy. It keeps them warm.  I think they may be upset and she doesn't realise it. You know how cats hide their feelings.

And that is another problem. You are going to have to make sure that the heating is at least reasonable or possibly turned up in your home which will add to the expense of running the home particularly in the UK where because of the Ukraine war energy costs are incredibly high.

I am rambling and wandering off onto a different topic but you get my drift.

Do cats like the feel of tidy fur?

 This is a very esoteric, philosophical question but it came to my mind and I think it's quite important because it's tries to investigate how domestic cats feel. I want to know whether domestic cats like the feeling of their fur to be lined up and combed. The other side of the coin would ask whether domestic cats find it uncomfortable when their fur is not lined up as it is when it's been combed by their human caregiver. The issue is more relevant for longhaired cats because their fur is more likely to become matted if neglected. Do domestic cats hate the feeling of matted fur?

My cat loves to be combed because it feels nice and his fur feels in good nick, all lined up! Image: MikeB.

We know that domestic cats like to be combed and brushed or at least they normally do. So, they like the experience of being brushed. I suspect that this is because they like the feeling of the comb or brush on their skin in much the same way that people like their hair to be combed by somebody else. It has a calming experience.

But people also like to feel that their hair on their head is well-kept. They want it to feel right which means in alignment and tidy. A lot of people dislike the feeling of their hair being untidy and unkempt.

The philosophical question is: do cats feel the same way about their fur? We don't know is the answer! We should know and I would like to know. I'm going to guess. They like it. They like their fur to be in good order, all lined up and neat and tidy.

This is one reason why they are so fastidious about self-grooming. And you know what comes to mind when I think of domestic cats grooming themselves? It is seeing feral cats looking terribly untidy and dirty. You don't see it much but you do see the occasional feral cat looking a complete mess. It must be terribly disconcerting for them to feel like this.

It indicates to me that they have given up mentally and emotionally. They probably feel terrible because of illness and have totally lost motivation to maintain their own hygiene. The beginning of the end for an animal trying to survive in the urban jungle and surrounding environment.

Postscript: in the picture you can see me combing my cat with a flea comb. Another benefit of being combed and another reason why domestic cats like to be combed especially with a flea comb is because it removes any fleas which are an irritation to them. The domestic cat might equate combing with relief from irritation and itching. Another reason why they like it.

PPS: My cat hardly ever has fleas! I flea comb him because he likes it.

Cat develops a dead straight blonde fur line on her black fur overnight. Why?

This is the question on Reddit.com: Binx has (overnight) developed a dead straight line of blonde on her back. Any ideas?

Black cat with blonde stripe on her back which developed rapidly. Image: u/FyldeCoast on Reddit.com

There is obviously no certainty that I am correct. It is a kind of guess based on little to go on. If you have a better idea please comment. It would be great if you did 😃.

RELATED: 2 examples of feline vitiligo (leukoderma).

This is my answer

It looks like it could be vitiligo. It is harmless. Antibodies attack the melanocytes (pigment producing cells in the skin in the hair follicle bulb). The melanocytes are destroyed and no longer produce melanin, a dark pigment producing black fur. This leads to fur without pigment in a localised area. The hair strands in that are just keratin and therefore semi-transparent having the appearance of being off-white. The white area may expand. Sometimes cats with vitiligo turn from black to white! Studies indicate that changes in the immune system are responsible for the condition and that both underlying genetics and environmental triggers are involved. Now you'll tell me some bleach dripped onto her back 😊.

Should I trim my cat's: whiskers, fur, claws, bum hair and/or paw pads?

Long whiskers - don't trim them as the are superb and they serve an important purpose. Photo in public domain.

In the order they appear in the title, the answers are as follows:

• NO! This is deliberately in capitals for emphasis 😊. Never dream about trimming whiskers to make them tidier. They are highly functional. They act as 'fingers' and feelers. The base of a whisker is connected to nerves resulting in the whisker being very sensitive to even air currents and the things that it comes into contact with.
• RELATED: How does a cat use her whiskers?
• You can trim fur in employing a lion cut. This can be useful for longhaired cats in home climates as the fur of Persians can be inordinately and unnaturally long. It should be done by a vet as the cat will probably need sedating or they even need a general aesthetic. These are dangerous. Discuss with your vet.
• RELATED: Cat Anaesthetics Decision Making.
• Claws need trimming sometimes. Full-time indoor cats don't normally have the means to wear down the claws on their forepaws. Outside cats wear them down precluding the need to trim them. Elderly cats need a regular inspection to check for ingrowing nails due to their relative inactivity.
• RELATED: Should Cat Claws Be Trimmed?
• Bum hair does not need trimming. No point, unless the cat is ill with diarrhoea and can't keep themselves clean.
• RELATED: Cat Health Tip: Treatment of Routine Diarrhea or Vomiting.
• The reference to 'paw pads' means the tufts of hair between the toes which you typically see on the paws of Maine Coons. No, you should not trim it. No need and it's a nice feature of the domestic cat. The hair serves a purpose anyway: to protect the paw pads in hot weather and to help keep the paws warmer in cold weather.
• RELATED: Maine Coon toe tufts - to trim or not to trim??

Long domestic cat fur mainly exists because people like it

Long fur on domestic cats is non-functional. They don't need it. The longhaired cats and cat breeds would be better off with short fur if functionality was the sole reason for their anatomy. Long fur needs human intervention to keep it in good condition, to prevent it becoming matted. Matted fur leads to infections and infestations of the skin. Domestic cats often can't maintain their own coat if the fur is too long. The decorative Persian comes to mind. There have been some horror stories of matted Persians over the years. Note: this is a cross-post because it is an interesting topic.

Shorthaired cats in a colony in a warm place. Photo: Pixabay.

The Maine Coon has a medium-longhaired coat because they were barn cats living outside. The coats served a purpose. When a wild cat species has a long coat it is for a reason: they live in cold places. I am thinking of Pallas's cat and the snow leopard for instance. That's natural selection.

The very long fur on Persians is due to artificial selection (selective breeding). Human intervention is the main reason why domestic cats have long coats. It is about human preferences. Many people like domestic cats with long coats. This sustains them when under different circumstances they'd fade away and stop existing especially in warm countries such as in South America where a study supported this concept.

ASSOCIATED: Feral cats will have less fur, longer legs and tails and larger ears due to climate change

They say you rarely see longhaired feral cats. It is true. You might see them from time to time if they are new to the feral cat scene and strays. But long term feral cats are nearly always shorthaired for functional reasons: they can maintain their coat themselves.

Dickkopf 4 (Dkk4) gene vital to the process of creating cat fur patterns

The research results report is impenetrable for the average layperson. I would politely ask the scientists to provide a second write-up of their research in straightforward English so the general public can understand it. Thanks in advance. This is important research which is central to understanding one of the most important features of domestic cats: the appearance of their coat. It is the most important aspect of the cat's appearance. Please tell us how it works in plain English. I am sure that even the science journalists struggle with the scientists' write-up.

Dickkopf 4 (Dkk4) gene vital to the process of creating cat fur patterns. Image: The researchers.

One of the scientists involved, Dr. Gregory S. Barsh. said to The New York Times:

"We think this is really the first glimpse into what the molecules (involved in pattern development) might be".

They carried out the research at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama, USA.

The research identified a gene they have called Dickkopf (Dkk4) as the centre of the process of cat coat pattern development.

"The secreted Wnt inhibitor encoded by Dickkopf 4 plays a central role in this process, and is mutated in cats with the Ticked pattern type".

They analysed skin samples from non-viable cat embryos for the study. Note: they made that clear I guess to avoid criticism of animal testing. Good. It shows a sensitivity towards the immorality of animal testing.

They used the embryos to explore the genetics behind a wide range of cat coat patterns. The original pattern for the domestic cat is the mackerel tabby (my comment) as it comes from the North African wildcat, the domestic cat's wild ancestor. All tabby cats have the famous M mark on their forehead, sometimes almost invisible.

Associated: Why are tabby cats so common?

At birth all cats have developed their coat type that they'll have for their lives.

Image: the researchers.

The gene Dkk4, as it changes in the embryo, dictates the pattern. They found that this 'signalling molecule' is behind all the coat appearance of a range of animals including cheetahs, tigers, leopards and the domestic cat.

Associated page: Cat coats tabby.

Differences in the expression of the molecule during the development of the embryo produces the variety of coat patterns during later hair growth.

Do Selkirk Rex cats shed a lot?

Do Selkirk Rex cats shed a lot? No, is the answer. There is nothing in the history of this breed which indicates that Selkirk Rex cats shed more or less than other cats. The cat has coarse guard (top coat) hairs and these together with the awn and down hairs are curled.

Curly-coated cat. The Selkirk Rex. Photo: Nathalie Jacques, Saint-Léonard d'Aston, Québec, Canada.

Selkirk Rex kittens are born with curly coats. The coat disappears at about 6-months-of-age. It is replaced by sparse wiry hair. At around ten months old the adult coat emerges which is curly, plush and thick.

There is nothing in the literature which supports the belief that the Selkirk Rex sheds a lot. They neither shed more nor less than cats with normal coats to the best of my knowledge.

Hair shedding in cats is due to the change in the amount of light not the amount of heat. That is why shedding is seasonal with more hair shed in the summer months due to more light.

The gene causing the curly coat is dominant in contrast to the other Rex cats. 'Rex' cats are curly haired cats. The Devon and Cornish Rex cats are also well-known. The Selkirk has gained some popularity recently (2018-2021) because of media coverage of cats with sheep's coats.

How many hairs on a domestic cat?

CONCLUSION: 68,250,000 hairs on a standard-sized cat weighing 10 pounds.

I have tried to work this out before. Perhaps it would be easier to simply read what somebody else has calculated. It is very hard to be accurate because the geometry of the domestic cat means that it is very difficult to apply some basic formulas to work out the surface area. My research indicates that there are about 60,000 pairs per square inch or 25,000 hairs per square centimetre on a normal cat.

Image by Anja🤗#helpinghands #solidarity#stays healthy🙏 from Pixabay 

I decided to work out the number of hairs on the torso of a cat which is somewhat cylindrical and then add in the legs and head and tail. Fortunately, there is an online calculator to work out the surface area of a cylinder.

Smaller or standard domestic cat

I have found a veterinary chart on the MSD Veterinary Manual website which converts cat weight to surface area. A 10 pounds cat weighs 4.54 kilograms with a surface area of 0.273 square meters or 2730 square centimeters. Multiplying 2730 x 25,000 makes 68,250,000 hairs on a 10 pound cat.

Chart showing the surface area of cats of different body weights. Source: see above.

Large domestic cat!

I worked this out from scratch because I had not found the above chart at the time.

If we say that the length of the torso of a cat is 45 cm and the radius of this imaginary cylinder is 12.7 cm, the total surface area works out at 4662 cm². If we multiply that number by 25,000 (the number of hairs per square centimetre on a normal) we come to the grand total of 116,550,000 hairs on a standard domestic cat excluding the head, legs and tail.

I'm going to estimate that the area of all four legs is about 250 cm². The head has a radius of about 5 cm and if we take the head to be a sphere, which is not but it is near as I can get when working out the surface area, my online calculator makes that 314 cm². If we add that to the legs, we get 564 cm² which we then multiply by 25,000 to make 14,100,000. We then add that to the number of hairs on the torso to make 130,650,000 hairs on a normal cat's body.

I am now going to try and measure my cat to make sure that the length of his torso is as I have stated! Result: my cat is about 35 cms long on the torso. Can't measure the radius! Surprised?

Sale of clothes containing fur in shops in Britain will be banned

The UK government is drawing up plans to prohibit the sale of clothes containing fur in shops after Britain leave the European Union's single market and customs union. This is the result of Brexit. The government is currently negotiating a Brexit agreement with the European Union and it looks more hopeful at the moment. 

The European Union banned the import and sale of fur from domestic cats and dogs across the EU in 2009. However, an investigation by the Humane Society International in the UK discovered that fur described as faux fur is in fact real and can be found in some clothes and shoes. Faux fur is not better than the real thing.

Objectionable fur clothing. Photo: Pixabay. Note: I am not criticising this man
who is probably a model. Also I am not sure if the fur is fake or genuine.

The point to make is this: it is very pleasing to animal advocates that the UK government is going to put an end to the sale of clothes containing fur in the UK starting next year (all being well) but they will have to be particularly observant and rigourous in weeding out real fur masquerading as faux fur. My research indicates that faux fur is actually more expensive to reduce than the real thing, which is a terrible indictment of the amount of cruelty perpetrated on captive animals who are killed for their skins.

Apparently the faux fur is cat fur. Retailers should take responsibility for ensuring that the fur on the clothes that they sell is genuinely false. They should trace the source and insist that their suppliers provide certificates that their products are genuinely faux fur. Genuine fur disguised as faux fur is apparently quite a big issue in the high street. Fur traders find ways to wriggle around regulations.

I sincerely hope that the British government get a handle on this. There are a lot of unscrupulous producers, wholesalers and retailers who don't care about animal welfare. Changing the law and banning the sale of fur in clothes in the High Street in the UK is not enough although very welcome. There needs to be strict enforcement which is going to prove very difficult.

The move to ban fur in shops is being driven by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park who is the Defra minister with responsibility for animal welfare. He is working, as I understand it, with Carrie Symonds, Boris Jonson's partner who as we all know is a keen animal advocate. The ban would be a strong signal of Britain's post-Brexit freedoms. It would be very popular because opinion polls have indicated that about 80% of Briton's think that fur on clothes are unacceptable nowadays. They dislike the trade in fur. Northern Ireland will be exempt from this proposal because they remain in the EU's single market and customs rules.

The British Fur Trade Association, as expected, say that the proposals are "irrational, illiberal and misjudged". Animal advocates would say the same thing about the association. It is time for change, there is no doubt about it.

Real Fur Cheaper Than Fake Fur Resulting in Fresh Fraudulent Activity

In a perverse reversal of roles retailers and manufacturers are misrepresenting, sometimes fraudulently, the sort of fur that is on the products that they sell. What I'm saying is that the price of real fur from animals usually bred or stolen in China and brutally slaughtered for their fur has fallen to such a level that is now it appears to be cheaper than fake fur.

As a result, manufacturers use real fur rather than fake fur. As a further result, in order to prevent animal lovers from knowing about this, they represent real fur as fake fur. This is an extraordinary development and a worrying one because it indicates that there is an oversupply of real fur which further indicates that the production the real fur is increasing while demand is saying static or reducing.

I fear that production is increasing which means that there's a lot more animal cruelty of the most horrendous kind taking place in places like China where for example the raccoon dog is farmed for its fur and domestic and stray cats and dogs are rounded up from the streets and stripped of their skins.

Apparently the price of a 70 cm strip of real fur is about one dollar, which is quite extraordinary and shows the pitifully low value of the lives of the animals which have been forced to give up their skin to satisfy consumer demand.

One disastrous aspect of this development is that animal lovers who purposefully purchase items trimmed with fake fur are now being conned into wearing clothes which contains real fur. If they knew about that they would be shocked. It is very difficult for a consumer to tell the difference between fake and real fur.

However, if the consumer looks at the tip of the fur it goes to a point when it is real. Fake fur does not have that same feathering towards a tip. In addition, if the fur is parted and the base of the fur is observed you will see that it is affixed to the skin of the animal. You don't get that with fake fur. Purchases of items which contain fur should check these points before buying it because, as mentioned, there is a considerable amount of fraudulent misrepresentation of products in shops in the UK and almost certainly anywhere in the world.

This develop most concerns me because I know, as many other cat lovers know, that cats are brutally killed in places like China and Vietnam for their fur and sometimes eaten for medicinal reasons. It's all quite bizarre to me. It is quite harrowing and utterly immoral.

Trading standards officers in the UK have been fooled because they were unaware of this fraudulent practice. There is a lax attitude as far as I'm concerned with fur trimmings on items and there's lots of items such as gloves and jacket hoods which contain fur. Purchasers should be aware.

This problem is also big in America. There are insufficient controls. It is time that the trading standards authorities became tougher on Chinese importers.

Turkish Angora vs Persian Cat

At one time around 1900, the Turkish Angora was similar to the Persian. Looking at photographs of the two cats today (2012) you would not believe it. Selective breeding has separated them completely. The Turkish Angora is quite long and slender (foreign in shape) while the Persian has been developed in the opposite direction, round and cobby.

The Angora as it was called in 1901 (as opposed to "Turkish Angora") differed from the Persian in its coat, head, ears and tail but not in overall conformation (body type). The fur of the Angora was glossier and softer than the fur of the Persian. Angora fur was longer in clusters and it nearly touched the ground. The desired color was white.

The Angora's fur was a desirable commercial product in Turkey and sold to surrounding countries. I am not sure about this. I presume that we are talking about the pelt of the cat in which case they were obviously killed. This seems to be in conflict with this cat being a show cat in the early cat fancy. However, I may have this wrong.

The head of the Angora was less round and more angular than the Persian cat's head. It appears that the ears of the Angora were well tufted, more so than those of the Persian. The advice for breeding the Angora at the time was to cross the cat with imports from Angora (Turkey) thereby ensuring that the cat was purebred. That is an interesting concept today. It is common sense but you would rarely, I think, hear a breeder doing that today. Angora cats in Turkey are probably more purebred than the purebred Turkish Angora bred by breeders in the West.

The modern day (2012) Turkish Angora in Turkey looks like a traditional Persian so we can conclude that there has been no selective breeding and "refinement" of the Turkish Angora in Turkey. It has all happened in the West, mainly the USA probably.

Cat grooming removing mats

A lot of us, who care for cats will at some stage be presented with a cat's coat that is matted to varying degrees. Single cat coats never mat. It is double coats, cats with an undercoat of fine downy fur, that get matted because the cat is too old to get to all of the coat or ill or too fat!

Some mats will be impossible to brush out and you should never brush so hard that it hurts the cat because your cat will learn not to like being groomed, making matters worse in the long run.

Cat lion cut - matting solved at a stroke (err..cut) - Photo by moohaha

We are therefore presented with the decision to ask a veterinarian or a professional cat groomer to deal with the problem or deal with it ourselves.

Scissors come to mind to cut out the matting. Common sense says that this is dangerous for the cat because of the likelihood of cutting the cat's skin.

Cutting out mats with scissors requires extreme care. This is because the cat's skin, not being attached to the muscle underneath will "tent up" (be pulled up with the fur) making it easy to cut.

If you try and slide the scissors between the skin and the matting to cut out all of the mat in one decisive action you are liable to cut the skin bearing in mind the lack of visibility and the cat's movement.

The advice given is to slide a comb beneath the mat to protect the skin from the scissors. You then hold the scissors perpendicular to the comb and body (this means at right angles to the skin) and snip at the matting with the end of the scissors. This breaks up the mat allowing you to tease the bits out with your fingers. When this part of the process is completed the bits of mat left can be combed out.

Very bad matting really has to be done professionally.

What cats are hypoallergenic?

No cats are hypoallergenic although some individual cats might cause less of an allergic reaction that other cats. Also some cat breeds might cause a reduced allergic reaction than other cat breeds. But all the claims are anecdotal. There is no science on this.

Also we should remember that most people are not allergic to cats. The allergen that causes the allergic reaction is a protein in the cat's saliva called Fel D1. It is deposited on the fur when the cat grooms. It dries and flies off into the atmosphere as cat dander. If you are allergic to cats you need not touch a cat but just be in the same area and feel itchy.

Unneutered male cats are more likely to cause an allergic reaction. Incidentally, the word "hypoallergenic" means less likely to cause an allergic reaction.

Cat breeders like to mark out their cat breed as special. It is a marketing method. One Siberian cat breeder claims the Siberian cat is hypoallergenic. I cannot confirm or refute that. The Savannah cat is said, by a respected person who knows, to be hypoallergenic but this is not confirmed with science. The Life Style Pets (Allerca) Ashera GD is an F1 Savannah and claimed to be hypoallergenic. That is why they are sold.

Answering the question, "what cats are hypoallergenic?" we get the answer, "None, except that some will be less likely to cause an allergic reaction in people who are allergic to the Fel D1 allergen." The key is to find the individual cat or go to a Siberian or Savannah cat breeder and see if you start to itch!

Oh My Cat Loves to be Hoovered

God, I wish! I wish my cat liked to be hoovered. Think of the benefits. You could even groom your cat at the same time so all the dead hair got hoovered up. Even just hoovering without grooming sounds great.



Hey, got the best idea I have had for a while. Hoover should manucfature an attachment for their hoover (!) that has a Furminator head. Furminator make probably the best grooming tool as it gets to the undercoat and weeds out the dead and loose fur. This may take off.



The only downside is that most cats don't like the noise. But if we put the vacuum cleaner in a room, close the door (partially) and use a long hose maybe this could become the normal thing to do to groom our cat. And it is so satisfying for us to as we know we are getting rid of that damn hair.........Oh my cat loves to be hoovered, like hell she does.



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Cat and Dog Fur is Banned?

The Ban

Cat and Dog fur is banned in the European Union, from 1st January 2009 or so I have read yesterday. It took an MEP (Member of the European Parliament) 9 years campaigning to achieve this. His name is Struan Stevenson and he should be on the honours list next year. You are one of us kind sir.

This is a massive move in the correct direction as more than 2 million cats and dogs give up their skins for the pleasure of humans. Most people just don't think about the fur on the inside of their gloves or the trimming on coats etc. But it could well be, and probably is, the fur of someones cat, brutally killed in China and skinned, quite probably while the cat is still alive. The same fate awaits dogs. Please don't buy anything with fur on it or in it, unless you know where the fur came from. If the product is made in China, forget it and move on.



Photo by adriansalamandre published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License.

Switzerland and Russia - the bad boys

OK, progress is being made but how much progress? The center of import/export of cat and dog fur on the European continent is Switzerland, I thought, and Switzerland is not in the European Union (see Cat Fur - Switzerland). Neither is Russia in the EU and the Russians are the biggest consumers of fur products. I guess in that cold climate they like their fur coats etc.

Yet, Russia is a country where there is a cat fancy (cat lovers), where they like their cats. Fancy purebred cats have come out of Russia; the Kurilian Bobtail and the Russian Blue spring to mind. So come on Russian Cat Fancy! Let us hear you shout out at the top of your voices against wearing fur products. You, I am afraid to say, owe a duty to the cats of the world not just your little cat fancy world to stop rank cruelty to cats. You cannot wear cat fur coats and keep purebred cats at the same time.

Although cat and dog fur is banned in Europe it seems we have a long way to go before we can shut out from our minds the frightened squeal of a cat being skinned alive. Lets remind ourselves that it is not only Russia and Switzerland that trades in this fur. Belgium has a record and Germany likes the stuff and there are more countries. What about the eastern European countries. Romania, for example, has a very poor animal rights track record. Cat and dog fur is banned? I doubt it.

The Products

These are the products to avoid buying (come on now, its the recession - please stop buying this stuff:

--Full length full coats
--Fur Jackets
--Fur trimmed garments
--Hats
--Gloves
--Decorative Accessories
--Stuffed toys
--Key fob gizmo
--Any small object with fur on it

The Pain

Here is a brief reminder of the kind of ways cats are killed for their fur in China where there are no animal welfare laws to protect domestic companion animals. I find it hard to write this, believe me, but it must be done. I refer to cats. Dogs are treated just as appallingly.

Cats at cat breeding farms in the city of Hinan, Hebei province, are killed by hanging. Or they are hung by a wire while water is poured down their throats through a hose until they drown. The stomach is then slit open and the fur removed starting at the head. The cat may still be alive. At the time of the HSUS investigation (probably a year or so ago) there were over 100,000 skins in storage at one factory alone. Mass slaughter on a grand scale. I am sure there are many more and brutal ways of doing it.

Apparently long haired cats are kept by some Chinese as pets while shorthaired grey and ginger cats are kept tethered outside on a wire before slaughter. It's a kind of Armageddon in China for the domestic cat. About half a million cats are kept and killed like this in China each year during the "killing season" (my phrase) of October to February. Do the Chinese care that cat and dog fur is banned in Europe? No, the black market will thrive and anycase there are other countries.

The Pricing

Gray and orange cat skins $2.60 each. They can vary between 50 cents to $2.60 it seems. 24 cats make one coat.

Germany

Fur in Germany dog fur is known as "gae-wolf". Do they know it's dog fur from a dog brutally kept and killed? Do they care? Calling such fur gae-wolf is so typical of humankind. We love to hide behind language that misrepresents the truth because we can't face the truth about ourselves, it's too horrible. There are internet sales of fur products (coats) in Germany and importers. Cat and dog fur is banned in Europe but will Germany stop importing it from China?

France

They have their own misrepresenting language. They call dog fur loup d’Asie, or “wolf of Asia". Nice one France, very imaginative. It is used on coats and imported (direct?) from good ole China. Cat and dog fur is banned in Europe but will France enforce the ban? Can they enforce it?

Italy

They make great shoes. Shame the insole fur came from a once loved dog brutally killed and skinned.

USA

Fur imported is impossible to track as to source. Cat and dog fur is categorized as NESOI (Not Elsewhere Specified or Otherwise Indicated). Or perhaps “Mongolia dog fur”. Mislabelling and misleading specifications etc are commonly used to disguise the source. Commerce wins over morality, it always does. Cat and dog fur is banned in Europe but will go on unabated in the massive market of America? Is that fair comment?

Cat and Dog Fur Banned? -- I don't think so. Do you?

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Swiss Cat Fur

Swiss Cat Fur is still being produced in large quantities in Switzerland despite a new Swiss law which addresses the much neglected matter of animal rights. The Swiss federal government's actions are contradictory.

On the one hand they are demonstrating to the world that the government is enlightened enough to grant rights to animals that are normally only granted to humans and on the other they seem to be doing nothing about the production of Swiss cat fur. The cat fur trade in Switzerland seems to be in fine shape. There is high demand and a plentiful supply of free fur. This is because the feral cats of Switzerland are caught, killed (how?, probably without any controls as in food production), skinned and made into yet more consumer objects such as cardigans and blankets. Do people know that these products are made out of cat fur? I doubt it.

When the Swiss people in this despicable business run out of feral cats to kill (they were once a domestic cat), they pop across the French/Swiss border, it seems, and kill some of those too. They ship them back to the slaughter house and keep skinning.

How can this be right? The new laws cover social animals. There are many tens of thousands of domestic cats in Switzerland that live with their human companion in harmony - an extremely social situation; why aren't these laws protecting the cat? Their animal rights laws cover such things as ensuring that people who keep dogs attend a course (paid for by the keeper) on how to keep dogs.

These new laws come into force on Sept 1 2008. They may be difficult to enforce. It would though be easy to enforce a ban on the cruel Swiss Cat Fur trade as they must know where these businesses are.

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