I know, classic cauliflower ears! But he was only at the shelter about three weeks before I got him, had vet checkups and vaccinations but no mention in his papers about being neutered then (and full fur around an operative site), and he loves people, so I’m guessing he was someone’s pet, already neutered, before he somehow wound up on the streets.
When I take him to my vet for shots and so forth, everybody adores him and wants to cuddle him, which he loves. Pat (large animal coordinator) will swoop him off to her office where he curls in her lap while she works. I generally come in early just so everyone can have time with him.
But he freaks out in fury if a dog is present, and at home when he’s not near me he prefers to sleep with his back against a wall. I think he had some rough times on the streets, even without getting into tomcat fights.
Tuxedo cats typically have green or yellow eyes, but they can also have gold, bluish green, or golden green eyes. The gene that determines a tuxedo cat’s coat may be connected to their eye color.
The amount of melanocytes, or melanin-producing cells, in a cat’s eye determines its eye color:
High levels of melanocytes: Results in orange or gold eyes
Low levels of melanocytes: Results in green or yellow eyes
No melanocytes: Results in blue or pink (albino) eyes
Tuxedo cats are known for their black and white coat pattern, which resembles a tuxedo or suit. However, tuxedo cats can also be orange, silver, gray, or tabby bicolor. They also tend to have white whiskers.
My current Senior Cat was neutered at eight months and thinks every human on the planet was put here solely to pet him. I don’t know how he wound up as a starving adolescent kitten wailing at the door of friends of mine who couldn’t keep him; but he obviously thinks he’s never been deliberately hurt by a human.
And, despite the neutering, he came by his cauliflower ears the hard way: driving off every cat who wandered through who he thought was an interloper, some of whom were tough area barn cat toms who fought back. I don’t really want to imagine what he would have been like as an entire tom.
LOL, I wish it were true! His ears would be in a lot better shape, they wouldn’t chronically stink, and I wouldn’t have to treat them periodically despite his best efforts to escape.
For those without a photo-hosting account like Flickr: If you have a Bluesky or Xitter account, you can upload a photo there. When it posts, you can click on it to open in a new tab, then use the URL of that tab to post it here.
I’ve done that with Facebook in the past, but after some period of time the photo disappeared, so i don’t know how that would work for anyone else.
Re posting pictures: one of the easiest ways to do it if you don’t already have some handy picture-hosting account is to just Google “imgur” and go to that link. You can click on “New Post” at the top left and upload one or more pictures without even creating an account or logging in.
Just remember, before you post a link to a picture, right-click on the picture that appears in the Imgur album and then select “display image in new tab” (or whatever the equivalent is in your browser and device) and then post that link – it should be a link ending in “.jpg”. If you just post the original album link, the picture’s top and bottom will be cut off.
This public service announcement is provided because we can always use more pet pictures! I might even post a few more myself. I don’t currently have a pet, but I do have archives!
