Take a good look at your cat, and tell me what you see.

Cafe Society
1

This is an excercise in studying and enjoying that beautiful purring piece of furry artwork that has just, for the umpteenth time, tried to wedge himself between me and my keyboard. I think he needs the attention. How about yours? :stuck_out_tongue:

Mine’s a tabbycat, and every single hair has two or three bands of color. Black, tawny, dark grey. When I look up close, the color of his fur shifts as myriad tawny tips overlay the shiny black fur underneath.

He’s got *five * rows of whiskersockets. The vibressae in the upper three are large, (and have colorbands themselves) but there are smaller vibressae in the lower sockets. The sockets closest to his nose are filled in with tiney black hairs, but have no whiskers in them, though.

He’s got eyelashes. Quite long ones, in fact. Black.

Some days, when he has just washed himself, he’s more shiny then on non-laundry-days. When his last washing was yesterday, he’s got the same ruffled look he gets when he’s just woken from his sleep and greets me.

He slowly halfcloses his eyes to smile back at me, when I’ve squinted my eyes at him.

The short tawny hair on his dark-skinned nose grows in crowns, and follows a complicated pattern.

Please, take a good look at your cat and tell me what you see. We’ll make a guided tour out of it.

2

Charlie is an orange and white tabby. His face is orange at the top; the white below his eyes continues all the way down his chest and belly. There is an orange spot to the left of his nose, and he has random black freckles on his nose and fur which make him always look a little sooty. His eyes are golden, his whiskers are white, and his short fur is unbelievably thick and soft. Either during his birth or shortly thereafter, his tail was broken and it healed at an angle so it now forms a perfect “L.” He has an expressive face and is loaded with personality (which I won’t describe since I take this to be an exercise in visual observation). He is slightly overweight. . . okay, he’s fat, but he wears it well.

3

Stacy is a lovely tabby with plenty of white. She, too, exhibits the classic banded hair patterns. She has five lovely stripes of black that begin on her forehead and travel up and over her head and down her neck, where they end in the white band around her neck. She has the cutest pink nose, surrounded by white that travels up her nose and ends in a point on her forehead. The white is under her eyes, covers her muzzle, and continues in one swoop down her body to her belly. It ecompasses her front feet, slides up her body behind her left front leg, and widens out over her dangly tummy. (She’s fat.) Her front paws have dots of tabby-ness on the back, and her back legs are primarily striped. However, all four feet are white. She has a slightly short tail that ends in solid black, and an odd little sprinklin of white hairs in the center of her back. When she was born (in my bed, no less), I thought she looked like a turtle, so that was her name until I found out her gender.

Currently, she is rolling around on my desk, showing me her fat tummy and giving me the “why aren’t you petting me?” look.

4

Jane is old and very wise, surveying his house and finding that all is well. Great Whore Jezebel is wondering, “Will you play with me?”

5

I tired to pick Grace up to examine her and she scratched my leg. Therefore, I can tell you that she is a very old yet still stunningly beautiful cat who doesn not like to be woken up for frivolous reasons.

6

Jesper is my sleek, sweet baby boy.
He’s black on top and white underneath, with white sox and a white snout that has a streak up the side of his little black nose. His eyes are light green and intense. If you mess with him, he’ll cock his ear back and give you a go-to-hell look. :stuck_out_tongue:
He’s short haired and smooth from head to tail…the black tail being our favorite play toy…one day he’ll realize it’s attached. He’s all muscle and lightning under that coat.
Gia is an escaped Henson Muppet. We’re pretty sure she’s closely related to this one. :wink:

7

I won’t look at my cat right now. I woke up with her butt right in my face and now we’re both feeling a little awkward.

No really, Tup is a petite fluffball with the cutest little paws. She’s varying shades of beige to brown, with dark chocolate brown paws, tail, and face. She’s has the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in a sweet, broad face. There’s always loose hair stuck on her nose.

8

I see a meatloaf with fur.

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This is really reaching, Cafe Society-wise. But go ahead, so long as none of you hangs his cat up on the wall.

– Uke, CS Mod and SDMB Art Cop

10

:smack:
Now you tell me.

11

I will remark upon Austen, since she is sitting right here on the floor by the chair, doing her… um… personal grooming. Lucia is somewhere else in the house.

Austen is an grey and orange tabby–not tortoiseshell, since the orange is mixed throughout her coat rather than in patches. The color really comes out in the sunlight. She has a blaze of orange on half of her nose, and her tummy is the color of orange sorbet, as are three of the toes on her forepaws. The neatest thing about her coloring, though, is that the orange toes have pink pads; the rest of her toes, which are pale grey, have sooty-grey pads.

12

Sebastian is a female cat. She’s just over a year old and she’s growing very fast. She used to be a tiny cat, but now she is growing into a large, beautiful cat. Her legs are long and muscular, her chest is wide, her shoulders are broad, her muzzle looks like that of a tiger. Her colours give away her domesticity, however, as she is a velvety gray with a white bib, belly, and paws, along with only one side of her little gray nose, which is perfectly on the rounded part, and nowhere else. She looks like she should have had it on both sides, to be symmetrical, but it looks somehow right on her. She has very large, golden eyes. Each of her little toe pads are alternating colours - one pink, one gray - on every foot. Two of the main pads are gray, two are pink. She’s a bit antisocial, but when she’s lovable, you can hear her several blocks away, her purr is so loud.

Her baby adopted sister, Kero, is a confounding ball of fluff. Kero is about a year old, and even the shelter couldn’t seem to get straight what colour they wanted to call her. She is black, yellow, and white, yes… but it’s too hard to tell if she is a tortie, or a calico. Some patches look very calico, in that they are very distinctly seperate, but on her entire back, the colours are all intermingled like a tortie. To add to this confusion, her calico-esque face, tortie-esque tail and front legs, have tiger stripes, which could make her a torbie, as well. She has an all white bib, belly, and paws, though. And a cute little pink nose, and wide, golden eyes. She’s quite fond of using the Shrek “Puss in Boots” big black eyes look on us. It works as the movie shows us it will. She’s still very small.

Of the two, Kero is the most lovable, and I would like to think it’s because she’s the most appreciative, since we rescued her from the shelter. Everyone thinks their shelter cats have had some horrendous past, and I don’t want to think Kero’s was overly dramatic, but she does have hip troubles, drippy, gooey eyes that we need to tend to every now and then (though she’s healed quite well), and when we adopted her, her entire hind end was shaved for some inexplicable reason - no one we spoke to at the shelter had any idea why this was done to her. Her history is unknown, since they had found her on the streets only a week before we adopted her. Regular trips to the vet have shown she’s improved since we got her in June, she’s happy, healthier, and has gained four pounds since her first visit the day after we adopted her. She loves to sleep in my lap, or more often than not, on my shoulder, much like a baby. She expects me to prop her up with my left hand while lays her head on my shoulder and dozes peacefully - for hours. Hours. I can do housework, cook, dance and sing, etc, with her clinging to my shoulder. Snoring.

13

Little Bear is sitting on my lap right now, purring, making it a little difficult to type this. In all his 16 years, he had never sat on my lap until a few months ago, when his buddy PoohBah passed away. Little Bear is a Russian Blue, with a cool gray coat that gradually becomes a little silver at his paws. In the last couple years, I’ve noticed his coloring turning to a slightly warmer gray on his back. I guess cats’ hair changes color too, as they age.

When Little Bear comes down the steps, he has to take two steps on each step now, just like my 91-year-old mother. But when he’s ready to use the litter box, he darts around the house like lightning, just like he always has.

He’s a very dominant, assertive and possessive cat. But that wasn’t a problem when PoohBah was alive, since PoohBah was a very laid-back Maine Coon. I know I have to get a new kitty to keep Little Bear company - probably a young female would be best.

Well, now he’s off my lap and sitting in a little patch of sunshine on the floor. That’s one of his favorite things.

14

People, people !

I see some of us are overwhelmed by the cuteness of our cats. That’s fine, and I admit it is quite likely to happen whenever you take a good look at them.

However, today we’re in a cat-art-class. So let’s examine brushstrokes, ornamental details, and architectural beauty. The point of this thread is to point out to each other al those rich details you would have missed otherwise. I’d like it if readers of this thread, for example, started noticing that their cat has eyelashes, too, and dense ones at that, quite capable of upholding the fur on her eyelids. And I would like it if you could point out details that would make me go: “Damn, you’re right; never noticed that before.”

Here’s another example. Have you noticed that a cat’s walking cushions are elevated at least a quarter of an inch? And that its whole paw is comparable to our hand, or foot? Its backward bended "knee"is our wrist; its knees are higher up then her belly, but a bit hidden in a cat’s build.

15

Jezzie has a permanent milk moustache — a bold white swath just under her nose. And white mitten paws.

16

I remember reading somewhere, that a cats whiskers and eyebrows correspond in length to its girth and ear height respectively. Apparently this leads them to be able to ascertain whether they can fit through a gap without having to employ reverse mode. I believe reverse mode is not popular with cats. This would appear to be borne out by examining a cat. Fat buggers have longer whiskers. Charlie had the most enormously long whiskers. He was a porker. Gertie, being of more supermodel proportions, has whiskers about as long as she is wide, which isn’t very. Her eyebrow ‘whiskers’ are fairly long, and I assume that this is to make allowances for the extra squirrel-like tufts she sports, giving her a rather startled appearance. If you watch her explore new enclosed spaces, she very rarely ventures in unless the whiskers don’t have to bend too far. Somebody else pointed out to me that it might be a good idea for potholers to employ this sort of arrangement, thus negating the use of rescue services when they get stuck in gaps.

17

Raven, my cat, lives with my parents, so I’m doing this from memory.

I call her a black cat, but she’s not. Somewhere in her ancestry is a tortoiseshell. Usually, on glancing at her, you see a black cat - a house panther, as I like to call her - but if you study her when she sprawls in direct sunlight, you can see that her coat is really only black on her head, legs, and tail. Her trunk is lightly banded, and on her stomach, there are three small splotches of cream.

She is small, and even as a little old lady (now 13 years old), she is still frenetically active when the occasion strikes. She doesn’t understand that she’s only 7 pounds. She firmly believes she can take on anything up to a professional football linebacker.

She purrs with the slightest reason, louder than you can credit for such a petite thing. She adores men, the smellier the better. She can occupy more than half of a queen size bed, and will steal your pillow if given a chance. The only way to discourage her is to growl when she tries to climb up on it. She is one of the most loving cats I’ve ever known. If I turn in my sleep, she wakes, climbs over me, and settles in again so that she can be close to my face. When I was in college, she used to fall asleep right at the edge of the front door, so the moment I opened it, she would know I was home.

I miss my cat. :frowning:

18

Oh yes, a black cat with secret black stripes. Those are beautiful.

Sqwerticus, the big cat-big-whiskers theory fits my cat. I’ll check it in other cats. Cool!

Anastasaeon, yes, I’ve wondered what the real "skin-color"of a cat’s skin is. Their nose is reddish; the skin on their paws sometimes blackl, sometimes reddish-brown, sometimes light fleshcolored. Underneath her fur her skin just seems grey-white.
While checking skin-colour, I found out my cat has a soft undercoat of slightly wavy hair. The longer tophairs are straight, though.

19

Cookie Monster aka Moogly aka Moo. She’s a tabby and has the prettiest face I’ve ever seen on a cat. Dark and light fur in stripes all over her, running along the top of her head, and making an inverted V between her ears. Four rows of white whiskers, little pink nose, and a cute white chin. Stripes running down her body, forming roundals on her sides, and her tail is striped all the way to a black tip. She has a big fat beige-and-white fluffy belly, and the softest fur I’ve ever felt. (This isn’t bias: I’ve had lots of cats, and she really is the prettiest and softest cat I’ve ever seen.) She’s recently taken to climbing into bed and lying there like a person - under the duvet, with her head sticking out on the pillow.

20

Here’s her pretty face.