Nina the Cat: Small, but Mighty (has pix)

In My Humble Opinion
21

My scale is, unfortunately, not that accurate. It’s pretty old, and can weight me 143 when I step on it in the morning, and then I get off and get right back on, and I weigh 141. That’s a good enough estimate of a healthy adult human, but when you want the weight of a cat who could be anywhere from 5 - 7lbs, it’s not good enough.

Also, Nina will come sit on your lap, or sleep next to you, and loves petting, but isn’t crazy about being carried around, and squirms a lot. The scale would probably never settle.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

22

I had what my vet charitably called a “black burmese”. One of his parents was most likely a burmese, the other a random black cat. He was rescued by some kids who found him on a school field.

He was loud. Really, really loud. A lovely cat, though.*

My ex-gf had a pedigree burmese. She was loud. (The cat, not the g/f!)

* he did have a habit of wakening me for his breakfast by inserting a single claw into my nostril, which, of course was not lovely. But he did have a very effective technique for getting fed.

23

The loudest cat I ever had was a Siamese who had not actually had kittens, but had been allowed to go into heat a couple of times before she was spayed, and Wow was that cat loud.

She had an opinion on EVERYTHING. When she entered a room, she came in meowing. If you came in, she greeted you; if she walked down to the end of the hall, and found herself alone, she’d wail and wail. People called up on the phone, and heard her crying (in another room!) and asked if we had a baby! You could actually hear her meow over the vacuum cleaner. Really!

I had another Siamese, and she was very talkative, like the first one, but not nearly as loud: she did not have the pitch range, nor the variety of meows as the first one, though she was still pretty loud; she was spayed at about 3 months. The one other cat I had was 1/2 pedigreed Color-point Persian (aka Himalayan), and 1/2 Ramblin’ Man. She was all black. She was spayed around 4 months, and she had a loud meow, meowed a when I was getting dinner, or when in the she was excited, but did not have a social meow like the others.

Nina is not as loud as the first Siamese, but I think could hold her own with any of the others. It’s kind of sweer, her social meow.

24

Our current cat is like this. She’s a Siamese that my SIL found hanging around her back yard. She looks purebred but nobody in the area seemed to be missing a cat, so possibly abandoned. She’s quiet when she’s sleeping, eating, or being carried or petted.

Regarding the OP, we had a black cat that my wife rescued as a kitten from the parking lot at her work. Onyx was always very small, never much bigger than a kitten, but lived a long life with us.

25

The Supreme High Empress of All that She Surveyed, AKA Spunky, was about six pounds, too. She also had a birth defect that left her with no bones in her back legs. She didn’t let either her size or her legs slow her down at all, though, nor to undermine her authority over every other living creature in her demesnes. She was an indoor-outdoor-wherevershewants-door cat, and she lived to be over 18.

26

I’ve had two black cats: Morgan was a trim, and typical cat-sized-- about 10 lbs. Irene was smaller, never topping the scale at more than 8 lbs, but her mother was a long-haired colorpoint (formerly known as a Himalayan), and while not a long-hair herself, was so fluffy, she looked bigger than she was. Irene was not as loud as a Siamese, but she was expressive, and VERY talkative. And for a Domestic Shorthair, loud.

Nina is small-- she’s gained weight since I got her, and probably is close to 6.5 lbs now-- she might lose a bit if I cut back on some of the fatteners, but I’m waiting to see what the vet says on the 20th. If she drops to an even six, I won’t worry.

But anyway, small, but also sleek; not fluffy at all, her fur lies close, just like a Siamese, and she doesn’t have an undercoat. It contributes to her looking skinny. I’m trying to pay attention to he weight, and not her looks.

Irene and Morgan were both healthy all their lives, lived to be about 17, and developed kidney failure, then declined rapidly. Irene went quickly. Morgan we had put down. In both cases, I was holding them.

27

Such a sweetie! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

I had a black cat, once. He was “black masking tabby”. You could only see his stripes if he sat on a window sill with the sun behind him.

28

Here is Nina today almost exactly 6 months after coming home:

She’s on the same perch of her cat tree as in the January picture (I don’t know what she just spotted), just so I can say “Am I crazy, or is that cat bigger?”

A lot of it is fur. Her fur got really thick, and she grew a whole undercoat she didn’t have at the shelter.

But I think the cat they told me was between 2 & 4 years, and had the gleaming white teeth was really not a year yet. I mean, there was another black cat there whose stated age was 9 months, and she was bigger than Nina.

It might be hard to see in the pix, but she looks so much bigger, and she is not skinny anymore-- she just looks like a normal, healthy, slim cat, not one with health problems. You can feel her ribs, but you can’t see them.

Unless a cat over a year, but still fairly young can grow more if it has been nutritionally deprived, and suddenly starts getting good nutrition and unlimited access to calories (this cat could be a competitive eater). Anyone know of that happening?

She doesn’t go to the vet again until December unless she has health problems, and I don’t want to traumatize her by taking her there just to weigh her. My human scale is accurate enough to track my weight, but not precise enough to weigh her. It can weigh me at 144, then I can get off, reset it, get back on, and weight 143.5-- good enough to track my health, if I weigh two or three times a week, or once a day when I am sick, but not good enough to weigh myself, pick up the cat, weigh again, and subtract.

She wiggles too much for my food scale.

But no matter-- just tell me if, looking at one picture and the other, you see what I see,

29

duh

Here’re the two pix together to compare:

ETA: don’t know why they are small like that.

ETA2: Crap-- now that I Iook at it, she might be in different tiers of the cat tree. I measured-- the one in the second, later picture is not as long-- but it is just as wide.

30

Yup, i’ve seen it happen. I don’t think with a cat as old as four; but pretty definitely over a year. Even well fed toms will sometimes grow until they’re 1 1/2 or so; and I wouldn’t be surprised if a year old or year and a half old starving female grew more once she got enough food to do so.

Shelters IME are often wrong about ages, at least other than for kittens under 8 months; they can easily be off by a couple of years, maybe more.