Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses

Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses is a painting that is, for me, all about the famous Japanese bobtail cat. Kuniyoshi Utagawa (歌川国芳) lived between 1798 and 1861. He was one of the masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting and belonged to the Utagawa school.

This is a good era to discuss any cat breed because it is before the recognized cat fancy and it taps in to the long history of this cat breed before photographs of cats were seen. What interests me is the appearance of the cat in these paintings compared to the appearance currently. At the time of this painting the Japanese bobtail had been in known existence for some 800 years. I have discussed the history on the Japanese bobtail page.

I am sure that the cats in the painting below are both bicolor and tricolor. I have marked the tricolor cats with red connecting lines to show what I think is the same area of color. The cats in the top right hand corner and bottom left hand corner of the picture are bicolor Japanese bobtail cats. The bicolor and tricolor were and remain the favorite types of coat for this breed in Japan.




Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses (above)



I think the pictures make a nice comparison and the only real difference between the old and modern Japanese bobtail is that the old one is much more cobby (stocky) if the depiction is reasonably accurate. The modern breed standard states in my words that..:

If the body conformation is "cobby" (like a Persian or a Manx cat for example) then the cat will be penalized in competition.

I would suggest that the cats depicted by Kuniyoshi Utagawa in this painting Four Cats In Different Poses, would all be penalized in competition and not win a thing in the show ring today.

It seems as if the modern breeding program has gone for a more “foreign” (slender) appearance (see Cat Body Types) and drifted away from the original appearance. The modern Japanese bobtail should be long, lean and elegant with no cobbiness according to the CFA breed standard. If I am correct and I am speculating, the cat fancy in the USA has refined this cat breed to make it more delicate looking (refined looking if you like) and attractive by modern standards. This is in line with what has happened to the Siamese cat and indeed other breeds (see Siamese cat history).

The Persian went in the other direction becoming excessively rounded including a very flat face (see Persian cats).

One last thing. The cat that is bottom right of the painting is waving the classic welcome with the palm of the paw outwards. This is the welcoming cat beckoning - the Maneki Neko ("Beckoning Cat"). The beckoning cat is placed outside shops etc. to bring good luck.

Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses -- The pictures of the painting is in the public domain due to lapse of time (uploaded by user: Petrusbarbygere) and the picture of the woodblock is reproduced under a Wikimedia Commons license. Picture of beckoning cats Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic creative commons license.

From Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses to Cats in Paintings

Split Foot Cat

A stray cat who has been named " Clawdia" has a very rare congenital condition called split foot. The medical terminology is ectrodactyly. She is an ectrodactyl cat (a cat with less than the normal number toes), the opposite to a polydactyl cat (a cat with more than the usual number of toes).

Photos: PH

She is in the care of Cats Protection, UK. As you can imagine she is very popular because she is so unusual (and her character is great). At the date of writing this article (25/02/2018), I believe that she is still available for adoption and if you are interested you can visit the following website: http://warrington.cats.org.uk/

I'm told that she has four weeks of prepaid pet insurance and she is spayed, vaccinated and micro-chipped. She is also wormed. She is a great looking cat in good health and ready for adoption.

Apparently, every effort was made to find her owner but the search has now been exhausted. She is believed to be about 11 years old. She was found as a stray in the Great Sankey area of Warrington.

The usual number of toes on each front paw is five (the fifth is the dewclaw). Therefore she is missing three on each front paw.

She was born with some of her toes fused together. You can see that the central digits are missing giving a claw-like appearance. It is a rare form of congenital disorder. This disorder is seen in humans as well. In humans it is seen with other congenital anomalies. As far as I'm aware Clawdia does not suffer from any associated congenital anomalies.

This is the first time that I've seen a cat with this condition.

Who Said Cats Don't Have Emotions?

Here's a video of two cats who I would say are closely related. They have similar coloration and they are clearly very close emotionally. The larger and perhaps senior cat is, on the face of it, comforting the other cat.

They are both in a stressful situation. It is a time when at an emotional level they need some comforting and it is being provided. It is impossible not to believe that these cats are feeling emotions, particularly the emotion that goes with being caged in a cat shelter with noises and strange things happening; anxiety.

The reaction is an emotional one, a desire to comfort and a desire to receive comfort. It is a charming video which I believe supports the view that domestic cats have emotions.

Little by little there is a gradual awakening to the fact that domestic animals feel emotions and indeed a very substantial proportion, well over 50%, of concerned cat owners believe that their cat can feel compassion and a similar percentage although slightly lower believe that they can feel jealousy. These people have a closer bond than usual with their cat.

I'm not sure that this depth of emotion is true or whether the cat owners are projecting their emotions upon their cat but anecdotally it could be argued that domestic cats have the ability to feel what are described as secondary emotions.

The other day I was out for a walk with my neighbor. She has a cat. We discussed cat emotions. She was adamant that cats do not feel emotions. She said that domestic cats behave instinctively. Yes, domestic cats do behave instinctively but that does not preclude the possibility that they feel emotions.

The point that I'm making is that a lot of cat owners are unaware that it is likely that domestic cats feel emotions. The real debate is how deep and how complex they are. It is obvious that domestic cats feel contentment and can feel depressed (often through chronic illness) although pretty well all of us now realize that domestic cats instinctively hide their vulnerabilities in the interests of survival.

There is another argument concerning how over the 10,000 years of the domestication of the cat that they have evolved into possessing a strong ability to learn from their human companions. They observe and learn. This, for example is where we see some domestic cats opening doors by turning the door handle. The point I'm making here is that it may be the case that the domestic cat has developed his or her emotions during domestication. Their behavior is less instinctive than that of their wildcat ancestor. It is more learned in a highly domesticated humanized environment. This should encourage the development and refinement of emotions.

You Can't Pretend to Your Cat That You Are Dead

This is an amusing video on YouTube in which the tabby cat's owner fakes his death on the floor of his home to discover how his cat would respond. Would his cat respond in a way consistent with believing that he had died? We have seen, on the Internet, cats grieving for the loss of a fellow cat companion. I remember clearly a very well-known video of a street cat pawing at the lifeless body of another cat who must've been his best friend. He was trying to revive his buddy. It was a heartbreaking video. Most enlightened cat owners and non-cat owners believe that cats grieve and feel the loss of a companion. But what happened in this case?

Well you can see readily from the video that this man's cat is 100% certain that her human companion has not died but has simply decided to have a snooze in an unusual place. As a consequence, she sniffs him and rubs her cheek against his hand as it is at a convenient height and then plonks herself down next to him, in a way almost copying his behavior and then rolling over on her back in the most relaxed of manners in the complete certainty that her human companion is alive and well.

Don't take this video as an example that cats don't grieve or care if their owner dies. It is a difficult subject, there is no doubt about it because we can't read the minds of cats. However, where there is a close bond between cat and human companion and the human dies there is no question in my mind that the cat will feel that loss. He or she may initially feel confused and uncertain and then settle in to her change in fortunes and lifestyle. Associated with that will be a feeling of loss (and grieving) to a lesser or greater extent. We can't be specific.

But you can't fool your cat by faking your death. It makes me think of a cat called Oscar who "worked" in a hospice. He could tell whether one of the patients was dying or not. If the patient was dying he'd jump on his bed and stay with him. Can domestic cats sense when a human is dying? We can't be sure is the answer but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that cats are very sensitive to illnesses in their owners. I'm convinced that your cat will know if you genuinely are dead and lying on the hall floor. In which case her behavior will be different to that which you see in the video!

I can also recall the story of a cat who lay on her owner's grave for a long time after his death. And indeed in another story I recall a cat hanging around the grave of her deceased human companion who had died sometime before. She kept coming back to the graveyard. We are only learning now about some of the specialist skills that domestic cats possess based upon their extreme sensitivity.

One of these, on a different subject, is their ability to track their way home if they have been displaced sometimes by many miles. It is believed that cats can sense the Earth's magnetic field which guides them home but also, in my opinion, they are able to map the geography of the area using landmarks such as major roads to find their way home through those landmarks. This indicates that domestic cats have good memories.

It has been found conclusively using GPS radio transmitters that pigeons find their way home using a variety of tools one of which is the position of the sun, the other is the Earth's magnetic field and the third is the ability to map the geography of the landscape between where they were taken and their home roost. People should not decry and criticize the humble homing pigeon because they are incredibly skilled animals. And they can fly at 60 miles per hour.

Student Emma Gonzalez is Brilliant

Nothing to do with cats except that I'd bet some cats are missing their human companions today because they have been needlessly shot at school by a mentally disturbed former fellow student who should not have been allowed to own firearms.

Student Emma Gonzalez is brilliant. They are going to march on Washington. The students are going to teach the mealy-mouthed politicians (the adults) a damn lesson in integrity. As for Trump, the NRA bought him and his morality if he had any in the first place.