What is a van cat?

1st registered Van cat

The Van cat is a Turkish Van, a breed of purebred cat. The word "Van" refers to the town of Van in the southeast of Turkey which is on the shore of Lake Van.  This is the place from which the Turkish Van originates.

The proximity of the town to the lake resulted in these cats being good swimmers, it is said! The town was in the news recently (late October 2011) because of an earthquake in the region that destroyed parts of Van. On a sad note I would expect that a number of Van cats were killed as well as over 500 people.

The Van cat is semi-longhaired cat with a very particular coat that is unique to this cat breed. The coat is a chalky white except for an inverted "V" shape pattern on the forehead and a colored tail in the same color as the V pattern. The pattern is auburn colored or auburn and black (does that make it a calico cat?). The inverted V is said to symbolize Allah's thumbprint. The coat is designed to cope with harsh conditions. It is waterproof but there is no undercoat making it easier to maintain.

The cat can be all white in Turkey and odd-eye color is not uncommon as the gene that makes the hair white (the piebald or white spotting gene) can also affect the pigmentation in the iris of the eye. The eye color is blue, amber or odd-eyed.

Turkish Van cat - photo copyright Helmi Flick

Purebred cats are obviously selectively bred by breeders but you will see this pattern or a less precise versions of it on stray and semi-feral cats in the Mediterranean region.

The Turkish Van is quite a rare purebred cat even though it has been around for many years in Europe (1955 in the UK) and America.

The Wikipedia authors say this is an all-white cat. This is incorrect. It is not all-white in the cat fancy. Although as mentioned, in Turkey it probably is frequently white. In Turkey it would be a cat that is not necessarily registered with a cat association (i.e. it is purebred but not formally).

Were the Turkish Van and Turkish Angora the same cat before separated by the cat fancy?

---

The lower photo on this page is protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Why do cats like catnip?

Catnip

Catnip contains a chemical called nepetalactone that has an effect on the brain that gives the cat a high. Not all cats are affected.

Not all cats are attracted to catnip, a plant that looks like mint. Cats like catnip for the high it gives. This is probably similar to the kinds of high people get when using recreational drugs. It is not clear if cats can become addicted. It is said that they can. But I have never read about a drug addict cat. Have you?

It provokes certain behavior, such as sniffing it, chewing it and rubbing against it. After these behaviors the cat can lie and looked spaced out.

"Trips" last no more than one hour and it takes about a hour for cats to come down from the effects of the drug.

Catnip can act as a sedative for a cat when taken internally. Another drug Matatabi has a similar effect. It is found in Asia.

Read more about catnip.

Cat with Corkscrew Tail

The cat with corkscrew tail might be an American Ringtail cat. This is a recognized purebred cat. It is a rare cat. The tail curls to form a ring or corkscrew. I am sure that there are random bred cats with the same curly tail because the original American Ringtail cat was a non-purebred cat, of course. The shape of the flexible and strong tail is due to the presence of two genes, one recessive and one dominant. There are dogs, purebred and random bred, with the same sort of tail

Here is a picture of the American Ringtail cat.

American Ringtail cat - - photo of "Solomon's Promise" © Joseph L Halbleib

The person who created this rare breed of cat is Susan Mandley who rescued the first ringtailed cats.

---

The photo on this page is protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

What is a Cymric cat?

A Cymric cat is a long haired Manx cat. It is therefore a tailless long haired cat of cobby body shape (conformation) with forelegs shorter than hind legs that can give the impression that it is leaning forwards.

Cymric cat - "Bear Butt" - Photo copyright Helmi Flick

The Manx cat has a long history of supposed natural development on the Isle of Man, which is in between England and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea.

The Cymric beginnings are unclear. It is likely that the breed started through deliberate selective breeding in Canada in the 1960s. Either that or it happened spontaneously in a litter of Manx cats and breeding carried on from that start.

It is questionable whether a long haired version of an established cat breed should be made into a new breed rather than be categorized as the same breed with long hair.

---

The photo on this page is protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Kittens for Cheap Prices

Rescue kittens - Photo by Roy Montgomery

Kittens for cheap prices is a total misconception and people should not search the Internet for cheap kittens.

This is because the purchase price of the kitten or the adoption fee price at a shelter or rescue center is a tiny fraction of the cost over the lifetime of the kitten. And that excludes your unpaid time. A lot of cat maintenance is not necessarily fun; cleaning the litter daily, buying cat food, buying litter, taking your cat to the veterinarian etc.

Let's say the purchase price is $100 or the sterling (GPD) equivalent. The cost of maintaining the cat over his or her lifetime may be over $10,000 and more. The purchase price or adoption fee price will therefore be 1% of the total cost of buying and caring for a cat.

I think that conclusively undermines the idea that you can get your hands of kittens for cheap prices.

It is the same as buying a car. These days (2011) people pay a lot of attention to the running costs of cars. What is the miles per gallon? How reliable is it? It is uppermost in the mind other than the appearance and performance of the car. Yet almost no one thinks about the "running costs" of maintaining a cat in good health and contentment. You should. Note: a cat is a living, sentient creature not a car!

Two last points. (1) People looking for cheap kittens encourages breeding of kittens by back street breeders, doesn't it? We don't need back street, cowboy breeders neither do we need to encourage careless people breed their unneutered cats because we have more than enough cats on the planet already to supply people who are looking for kittens for cheap prices! (2) the travel costs to collect the kitten must be factored in.