Well, since there are true mutants, it’s more accurate to say that the vast majority of tricolors (such as torties and calicos) are female.
Simple explanation as to why there can be male tricolors:
Guess what? You have a cat.
I got picked by a cat once, though under different circumstances – I was moving out to my own apartment, and every time I left to go take a load of stuff or something Cloud would YOWL at the door. Finally Mom gave in and told me I’d better take him with me.
sniffle I miss him. (Had to give him up for everybody’s good…I couldn’t take proper care of him here.) We had tons of fun. Here’s to you having tons of fun with your new feline owner!
He appears to be a neutered male. I’m probably describing him wrong when I say “tortoise shell”. It reminds me of it; but as I said, it’s kinda striped too.
Both of my cats were strays, kinda. One was left behind by someone who moved out (spayed and declawed, and left on the street - who would do that?) an was temporarily adopted by the complex office. The other just kind of hung out in front our door for about three days before I brought him in. Unfixed male who looks like our girl’s brother. I have to go get him fixed in January (we adopted him just before I went on a 3 week trip to Tx - between vacation, bills, and Xmas, we haven’t had the fund to get him fixed yet).
So, yes, strays can be friendly. And just because a cat is fixed doesn’t mean it’s not a stray now. Some people abandon pets. Bastards.
And it looks like you have a cat, now. Hurrah!
So, you didn’t like my present? And I kept her/him all fed for you and EVERYTHING until you actually GOT here.
[sub]Course that’s a joke. Like I could ever keep a cat for a bit and then let her/him go? Not likely.[/sub]
But Merry Christmas, darling. One of these days I promise to rejoin the land of the living and we’ll all get together.
Love you!
Awwww, Johnny’s got a kitty!
“Cat’s” a fine name.
I agree that Cat is a good name for your cat. When I was a kid, we had a cat named Cat for a while. He had been hanging around my stepfather’s hairsyling shop all day, and when he went to come home, he just jumped into the car.
We had to give Cat away when my mom developed asthma (years later, we realized that it was probably the result of damage caused by the formaldehyde in the panelling in our mobile home. The place reeked of it so badly we all had headaches for the first three months we lived there."
Shortly after moving to his new home, Cat was run over by a car.
I missed Cat. He was a good cat. Basic grey tabby, but lots of personality.
Johnny, why wouldn’t you want that precious precious kitty??? Obviously he knows a winner when he sees one, that’s why he chose you as his companion!
You know you want that cat. You know it. That’s why you posted here, knowing what response you’d get. Ha!!
Poor widdle kitty…has no one else in the world and he wuvs you…be nice to him, love him and squeeze him and call him Kitty L.A.
:D. I know you a little bit, John, and I don’t see you turning him out if you have to move. Rather I see a friendship developing and some “getting to know you-bonding” coming on. If he’s neutered, at least he’ll hang around, and you won’t have to worry about him making any uninvited “visits”.
Good luck to both of you on your travels! 
Q
Johnny, you are blessed. A cat has picked you. Most people prefer dogs, I don’t care. A dog will kiss anyone’s ass for attention but cats a picky. If you have a cat that will readily come to you on its own, you have a rare thing. Enjoy.
Thirteen years ago, right before me and my wife were married, a tortise shell kitten showed up out of nowhere. We fed her and she stayed. For a long time I would ask my wife, “what are we going to name Miss Kitty.” She still answers to Miss Kitty. She is a fine cat.
My husband was adopted by a cat. Really! It was one I brought home, but she decided HE was her person. Same with my friend John and “Bart”. Man, wife, two kids in the house, the cat picks the guy, John, to be his person. You can’t fight it. Just give in and love it.
I bought a bag of food the other day. (My roommate would kill me if I used his racoon food.) And a dish. Not My Cat ate on Saturday, then I didn’t see him all day Sunday. This morning some “neighbours” (they sounded Canadian, and said they were going home today – I guess they were just here for the holidays) came by to ask if it was my cat. I told them it’s Not My Cat. They had taken it in on Sunday, and they brought it to me because I told them that I had bought some food for it.
I filled both sides of the dish with food, and Not My Cat ate about half of it. Then he went away. He came back a few hours later. I went for a walk down the street, and he followed me. At the dead end there were some guys working on a house. After chatting with them I headed home. Probably not a good place for a cat, since there was a lot of debris and they were doing some major work. I called, “Cat!” and it followed me to the street in front of my home.
A guy and his teenaged daughters were walking along the way I had just come. I asked them if it was their cat. (Hey, it might have been.) They said they thought it was mine, and that I was taking it for a walk. One girl said, “We can take it home!” The father said, “No we can’t.”
They continued down my street toward the water (see the other thread for the view from my driveway) and Not My Cat followed them instead of following me to the house.
I expect he’ll show up eventually. I fixed up a box with an old towel in it in case he wanted some shelter. But he’s Not My Cat.
:::laughing quietly:::
Of course it isn’t your cat.
I have 4 cats that aren’t mine.
The sooner you give in, the more painless it will be.
“General Tso” would make a great name for a cat. But in this case, you can call him “Notmine” and say he had a brother named “Carmine” who didn’t make it.
Congrats. hlanelee is correct: cats are picky; they don’t live with just anybody if they have a choice.
Or “General Price”.
Aww, you’ve named him! Not My Cat. I like it!
Your absolutely fatal mistake, in case you are wondering, was feeding him. Once you feed a cat, the cat knows you have accepted their rule. You definitely have a cat.
Johnny, does N.M.C. have any orange coloration in his fur, mixed with the black? If so, he’s one of those rare male tortoiseshells.
Why are you so reluctant to adopt this cat? Are you opposed to pet ownership in general at this point? If you own your own house and get along with this cat, what exactly is keeping you from adopting him? Sure, he likes to follow other people home sometimes, but if you feed him he’ll keep coming back to you. I got 3 of my cats that way, and they are all princes among cats. I find that rehabilitated strays make the best pets. Maybe it’s gratitude, I don’t know, but they are/were very affectionate and appreciative.
Rubystreak: I don’t think it’s a tortoise shell. It’s just the first thing that came to mind when I forst saw him.
Why am I reluctant to adopt a cat? Fear of committment? Hm. Well, I’d like to get married someday; so I don’t know if that’s it. Maybe not being able to share the cat with someone? Territoriality? I like animals; but I’m used to other people’s pets.
He hasn’t shown up tonight. I guess he’s mooching with someone else. (Or maybe he just doesn’t like Chef’s Blend?)
Back in college my roomates and I had a cat adopt us. After a couple of months we noticed he’d filled out quite nicely, a couple more months and he was becoming rather portly. One weekend we were at our neighbors’ place, having a few beers, when our kitty waddles out from one of the bedrooms and into the kitchen to chow down. Turns out he was not only our cat, but Ben and Jerry’s cat, plus the lady downstairs’, too. He was a charmer, was that Taco/Joe/Laddie.
You and Not My Cat are gonna do just fine. My great grandma always said the best pets were the ones who chose you themselves.
About four years ago, my daughter (then in middle school) got off the bus on her birthday, and on the way home encountered this oddly behaved cat, who came right up to my daughter and threw herself at my daughter’s feet. Of course, Daughter comes home with news of this “strange cat” who “didn’t have a home”, and could we keep it? I told Daughter that IF the cat was still there (by the busstop) when we finished with the grocery shopping (we were on our way to the store as she related this to me), and IF the cat could be found again and IF Daughter knocked on the doors of the neighborhood to see if it belonged to anyone and IF the cat didn’t belong to anyone, then we could keep it.
Well, after grocery shopping, we went back to the area. When we pulled up to the curb, here comes this scrawny black cat, right up to my daugher like she’d been waiting for her. The neighbors looked like we were insane when we asked about the owners of the cat, and finally one lady told us, “Honey, that’s a stray. Some Momma cat had a whole bunch of them.”
That was over four years ago, and Maya has been a fantastic cat. She’s been spayed since then, and has become a valued member of our household (and also joined the three other cats who had adopted us).
Congrats, Johnnie L.A., but it looks like you now have a cat. Sometimes things (cats included) come into our lives when we least expect it, and it turns out good that way.