Oh yes. I know that “meow” all too well. Usually at about some time around four thirty in the morning… It goes a little like this:
<clears throat>
MRRRAAAOOORRRRRRR!!!
And while I appreciate the sentiment that she wants to teach me how to kill, I’d really rather she kill, and eat, rather than leaving a half-alive, or dead mousy for me to throw over the neighbour’s fence, because I’m too nekkid to take it to the bin out the front.
I’ve just learned that Tortishell-and-white is a common term for a tricolored cat in the UK, while Calico is the common term in the US. I have always used tortishell as a synonym for tabby, but I find today this is not correct (at least according to wikipedia). Tortishell is a brindled pattern of black and brown (with no white) that is not all that common in my experience. However, I would still be hesitant to call her tortishell and white since she has no black patches. I stand by my earlier statement, corrected to Calico with tabby patches.
Check out tortishell markings.
The famous Earnest T. Bass, onetime champion of ratemykitten.com (and kittewar.com icon), shows off his Silver Tabby pattern.
She looks a lot like my Kee-Kee, even down to their little pink nosies. I used to have a tortoiseshell cat that was the brindled brown/black. Kee-Kee’s adoption paperwork from the Humane Soceity identifies her as a calico. She also likes to hunt, and makes a chirping noise when she is on the prowl.
Cute kitty!
Inyellen - they must be cousins ! THa
t’s uncanny (apologies for the interruption in service). Her ‘personality’ fits with what you’ve all said too - cute but deamanding, she decided to climb down under the duvet this morning using my leg as a ladder, you know just in case I hadn’t realised she was hungry !
PS daffyduck when Ponster read your post he said ‘mutt’ seemed like a good name for her - well done (she has recently adopted us and until now she’s been ‘cat’ or ‘chat’ in case she doesn’t speak English ).
Wondering if this statement is from when you were under the mistaken impression that tortoiseshell was a synonym for tabby (striped cats) (Post #22)? Because there is no dispute among feline geneticists that almost 100% of tortoiseshell and calico cats are female. I’ve been through at least 5,000 cats in my shelter and rescue work and have never seen, nor ever heard of anyone who has seen, a male calico or tortoiseshell. They are extremely rare.
Anyway, tortoiseshell and calico cats are the same thing. In the U.S., we commonly refer to tortoiseshell cats that have distinct patches of color, and particularly distinct patches of white, as “calico,” while those without distinct patches and without visible white fur are called “tortoiseshell.” (Part of the hair shaft might be white but it’s not noticeable overall.) There are also dilute torties, where the black fur is diluted to a sort of purple gray and the orange is a pale peach. I don’t recall ever seeing a dilute calico. Some calico cats have their non-white patches (the “tortoiseshell” patches) very distinct and others’ fur is so finely mixed that they are sometimes referred to as “multicolored” rather than calico or tortie. (I have one of these multicolor cats myself.)
Torties and calicos usually do not have distinct areas of stripes but when they do, they are sometimes called “torbie” - short for tortoiseshell tabby. Most non-pedigree cats are “tabby,” by the way, even the solid color ones. You just can’t see their stripes. (Often times solid-color kittens will have faint but noticeable stripes that disappear as they grow older.) As for the OP, that cat is most definitely what we’d call a “calico” in the U.S. - not a tortie.
Yes, that’s correct. I was confused with Tortishell and tabby when I made my original statement about male/femaleness. Now I would say all Calico (tri-colored) cats are female, and most if not all tortishell are female. I think it would be possible for a tortishell to be male if it had absolutely no white. As I understand it, Tortishell is specifically the brindled pattern of black and brown.
I know of a dilute calico – she’s sleeping on the bed next to me. 
Here’s a picture:
http://www.wedge.net/images/rand/1.jpg
Not the greatest picture but her brown is a pale tan and her black is a shade of grey (lilac, I think?)
The cat in the pic definitely has tabby markings. I stand by “Calico with tabby patches” (bear in mind, this is the same girl who, when asked what color her horse was, replied: Snowflake Pattern Appaloosa on a field of dark chocolate bay with black stockings and a star in the shape of a pentagon. 
I think most people would have said: brown, with spots.)
Interesting, amost all the cats I’ve seen in France have been tabby except for a couple of solid black ones. Our common or garden farm bred cats in the UK were black and white, you don’t get that here - I always knew they were special 
.
BTW - does grooming, ie brushing by humans, help the hair shedding problem ?
It’s really that tortoiseshell is a pattern of black and orange - not black and brown. If they don’t have orange, they can’t, by definition, be a tortie or a calico - it requires they carry both the gene for black and the gene for orange. Just black and brown don’t mean tortie/calico.
