After the mortality must come a felid. Reader Steve Obrebski sent a picture of his cat Purruru:
Purruru is allegedly a Flame Point Siamese, a breed having bright, reddish-gold points and brilliant blue eyes, creamy-white, short coats, and look like Siamese cats. Elsewhere these cats are also called Red Point Siamese or Color Point Shorthairs. We got him from a Japanese friend who had to move back to Japan. He is very snuggly with me and my wife, but also likes the laps of visiting ladies. and likes to dash outside (we keep most of our cats indoors) so we have to use a can of special aromatic cat food to entice him indoors. We have had him for 12 years and he is doing fine. He was probably 3 when we got him. We never checked but maybe Purruru is a Japanese word pertaining to cats.
Steve that they have 6 totally indoor cats, one who lives indoors in winter, and one feral outdoor cat that has adopted them. He also reports that two decades ago they had 23 cats, which is probably a record for readers here.
‘Purruru’ is an onomatopoeia for the sound a cat makes when it purrs. Japanese has many colorful onomatopoeic words for all kinds of different sounds.
Hi, Responding to the 23 cats being a record for readers, I’d like to top the record. I live on a 2 acre rural property that came with cats. There were about 50 cats at that time. We’ve managed to get the population down to somewhere between 35 to 40. We’ve spayed and neutered until we ran out of money and we give cats to anyone who will take care of them.
Oh dear! That’s a glaring of cats! Close family friends had the same thing and I’m glad you are spaying and neutering and homing as it is unpleasant if you need to euthanize if a rabies outbreak occurs.
My cat, Fred was a feral cat that I got from our friends when I was 5. I developed allergies after Fred.
23 October 2013 // Wednesday
Actually and as a matter of ! fact ! as re “they had 23 cats, which is probably a record for readers here,” in another of my lifetimes, I was a veterinary practitioner who had had two human clients, extr e e e e mely coincidentally both named Evelyn and both married to men named Robert, one of which humans had had 43 felids and the other Evelyn had had 39 … …
and for both persons when they brought any number of ‘em in to see me at a time, the time was always i) the evening’s last appointment and ii) I cleared all the exam rooms and disinfected and wiped away all other instrumentation for … … each Evelyn’s posse.
Just sayin’ — ‘twas a whole ‘nother lifetime ago —
Blue
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That is strange! I wonder if the same double figure cat rule applies to those men called Evelyn married to women called Roberta!
I just walked through a couple of rooms in my house and counted 16 cats. I think there are a few more who are in and out.
Beautiful! A few decades ago, when I had a house with a huge garden in the country, I once had a red point long-haired kitten who was so beautiful that he (and his equally beautiful sisters) were stolen… 🙁
On average, at that time, I had an average of 30 cats give or take a few. Anonymous people used to dump their unwanted or sick cats into my garden, and of course I would take care of them, nurse the sick ones back to health, and try to find new homes for them… without much success.
I had them all vaccinated but couldn’t afford to sterilize them, so I had frequent litters of kittens. They all lived outside 24/7 all year round but all got to come in for some quality time with me. Nature, old age, hawks, foxes, unleashed dogs on walkies with their owners and cars on the nearby roads all contributed to keeping the numbers stable.
Actually, at one time I had more than 24 cats (one of them had a litter of kittens under the shed that never got counted.) At the time I was running an unofficial shelter/refuge for feral animals, so exact counts vary widely over time. There were five that I considered MY cats, all with their individual weirdnesses) who came and went inside the house, while rest stayed in the yard. There were two that aggravated me terribly. One was a little grey tabby that was hit by a car; the vet said she needed hip replacement surgery, but I convinced him to stabilize the joint and put the leg in a cast (I was a single mother at the time and a couple grand for surgery on a stray cat was more than I could justify in my budget.) She was a really odd looking thing with that leg stick out at a right angle. Apparently she couldn’t live with the shame and threw herself under an 18 wheeler shortly after. The other was a cat I found in my yard; I had gone over to throw away what I had thought was an old rag. The vet said the cat had licked battery acid and all the sores in his mouth were so painful he wouldn’t eat or drink anything and was severely dehydrated and had some kind of infection. The vet wanted to keep him on an IV for several days, but I couldn’t afford that either, so I got some antibiotics, fixed him a nice cozy spot in the garage and gave him water and chicken soup with a syringe several times a day until the sores healed enough for him to eat on his own. It took a few weeks, but he turned out to be a beautiful white cat with blue eyes. And as soon as I let him out of the garage, he ran into the street and was killed be a car. I miss them all.
That is so sad! 🙁
Two dozen cats? Oh, my…just one is plenty for me.
He’s actually asleep on the bed right now…I should probably go administer an emergency bellyrub….
b&
Purruru has “mittens” like a snowshoe cat, something I hadn’t seen before. He’s very cute and I’m glad he’s healthy – the flame-points I’ve met have all been extremely sweet, loving, gentle cats, but fragile and prone to serious health problems.
I know several people who have (or have had) 20+ indoor cats. Our “pride” topped out at 12 a couple of years ago and we now have 8, ranging in age from 11 to 13.
Nice looking cat. Wow. That’s a lot of cat companionship. We have a bylaw that limits cat ownership to three. I find like Ben that I like to give my total attention to one. Chloe and I are pleased to have the place to ourselves now that the foster d*g has moved out.
That’s a lot of noms to supply.
I’m not sure if the two cats that live here would appreciate letting others move in, sharing isn’t one of their strong suits.
And as I’m writing this, I see they have forced my wife to join them in an emergency nap.
Purruru is gorgeous and he has some really interesting genetics going on! I’ve been using cat traits to teach genetics to my high school biology students (because I found that most of the traditional human traits bio teachers typically use foster too many misconceptions).
That flame point color is from the sex-linked orange gene on his X-chromosome. Because that dominant O allele will mask the allele for black/brown (not a sex-linked gene) in male cats, had Purruru been a female he might have ended up a tortioshell-pointed Siamese (never seen one of those).
His creamy coat color is due to the albino allele c^s and the white socks may be due to the white spotting gene (he’d be heterozygous, Ss, because he only has a little of the white spotting).
Notice too that the tabby pattern shows up in the orange points. That’s because that dominant O allele also masks a non-agouti (aa) trait that would make his points solid color. That’s why you always see tabby patterns on orange cats.
I think I’ll show this picture to my class tomorrow to see how much they can make out about Purruru’s genotype. I’d love to hear from anyone else who understands more about cat genetics.
See, that’s just what’s so awesome about this Web site. Come here to coo over a cute kitty, and you come away with a quick lesson in genetics and feline coat pattern inheritance.
Thanks!
b&
My first cat when I was an adult, and probably my best loved ever, was a pretty little tuxedo foundling my husband gave me right after our marriage (all of my animals have been foundlings.) She ended up being called “Kitty” because Jake and I were trying hard to think of some unique and beautiful name and took too long to decide until it became a moot point. She was really a beautiful animal with the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen and her white markings formed a perfect black heart on her chest. Before I managed to get her ‘fixed’ she had a litter of four kittens, all of which looked like steel point Siamese. The father was a huge black tom that wandered into our home one day and adopted us, apparently including Kitty. I know next to nothing about cat genetics except that the Siamese markings are recessive, so I figured both momcat and dadcat had interesting ancestries. The best thing of all though was, as the kittens got a little older one of them, while having all the Siamese characteristic markings, also had Kitty’s white markings. It took awhile to notice them against the light cream color of the Siamese coat. This was many years ago, but I’d still love to see what genetics fell out of that mixed bag!
Your story, of course, reminds me of CC….
b&
Totally agree!
And Purruru looks even more gorgeous to me now that you have explained his genotype.
It’s about unweaving (and reweaving) the rainbow.
Great idea, teaching cat genetics in high school biology! Your students will be well informed about cats as well as genetics.
I was a volunteer photographer for a cat shelter for awhile. I have a photo of a tortiepoint (and pics of a few other feline genetic oddballs) which you’re welcome to add to your teaching collection. You can google my name and contact me through my website.
Lorena Babcock Moore
The most cats at my house has been eight. There were two born a month or two before I was (their mother was stray and they were born in our garden), then we got a stray from my aunt when she went on holiday and that stray had five kittens. We kept three and gave two away once they were older. Unfortunately all of those cats are dead now, although the one from my aunt and two of her kittens lived around 17-18 years. The third one that we kept died after only about four or five years as he caught FIV.
Now there’s just one cat here. Another stray that the same aunt found and gave to my gran. We got it when she died.
The true Red Point doesn’t have tabby marks nor white socks, and has the typical Siamese pointed face. Purruru more likely has a Siamese grandparent or great grandparent and a red tabby father. Here is a picture of a true Red Point: http://www.spminiatures.com/jpgfiles/kbredpoinsiam.jpg
Thanks for the information. We can stop
misleading guests about Purrurus ancestry. We’ll just say he is a unique breed and his meow means “I’m special and don’t you forget it!!”.
Agreed. Just as is the case with dogs, cats of mixed breeds are the healthiest, smartest and most beautiful and individually unique!
About giving your cat egg yolk, I wouldn’t advise you doing so every day. Here is a website about what foods are not good for cats: http://www.messybeast.com/bad-foods.htm
Also, never have lilies in your home or growing in your garden: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21147474
Thanks for the information. I only let Purruru lick the yolk left over after I have eaten most of the egg and its almost always cooked over easy. I eat eggs for breakfast about 3 times per week so Purruru doesn’t get much. As far as the lilies, we don’t let our cats out except one that otherwise would pee in too many places, and only in the summer, and we have an outside semi wild cat. We do have lilies but have had no problems with the cats eating them. This cat diet material reminds me of a Kleiban cartoon on a towel we once had where the cat is playing the guitar and singing “Love to eat them mousies, mousies is my favourite treat, bite they little heads off, nibble on they tint feet”.
I would guess that a cat with no stripes would carry the dominant tabby allele for Abyssinian pattern, it’s one of the three Tabby (T) alleles Abyssinian, mackerel and classic in order of dominance.
So the pattern still shows up, it’s just not stripes.
If there’s more about patterning, I’d love to learn.
That cat doesn’t look like it’s alive. Is it a stuffed one?
Excellent point! I just looked up the website on which this photo is hosted ( http://www.spminiatures.com/karlblindheim.html ), and you’re right – it is a miniature sculpture (not a stuffed animal). Still, the colouring is correct and corresponds exactly to the few Red Point Siamese cats I have seen in real life.
I didn’t think there was much behind those eyes. The markings and color are lovely, though. However, I do have a very big problem with the way, without any real understanding of genetics, people have for very many years bred animals to create particular visible physical traits. The results, while they might make the animal more beautiful (not all of them) or better at performing certain activities because of size or other characteristic, almost all afflict the animal with inherent physiological weaknesses and health issues, many severe, that come along with these visible ‘enhancements’.
You are absolutely right. There’s a documentary about the damage done to dogs through pedigree (in)breeding which has drastically changed the morphology of some breeds over the decades which have resulted in awful health problems and suffering for these dogs: On YouTube watch?v=TMyqH_Q_iPY
Several cat breeds also have developed awful problems for the same reasons: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/petshealth/4990966/Inbred-pedigree-cats-suffering-from-life-threatening-diseases-and-deformities.html
OT
Don’t follow this link if you’re of a nervous disposition. This is from NZ where some sicko has shot a crossbow bolt through a cats head. Words fail me.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Moomoo-the-cat-survives-crossbow-bolt-through-skull/tabid/423/articleID/318484/Default.aspx
Having been commented upon and getting his genetic profile Purruru thinks that I should leave more egg yolk on the plate or yoghurt in the bowl to clean up after eating breakfast in the morning. The other kitties are jealous and want more scratching and combing.
Lovely cat that elicited a great discussion. Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful coat and very sweet face! Hats off to you for coping with 23 cats. I’m having my work cut out looking after one (who is currently glaring at me with a “get this blue cone thing off my head – now!”)
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