Back to anatomy 101 for you. The joint that points backwards on kitty’s rear legs are analagous to our ankles with the knee being up near the torso. The back pointing joint on her forelegs are the same as our elbows.
Our cat, the late Oreo, was extremely skinny even before she started showing signs of diabetes. No subcuteneous fat and not even any mucle tone in her abdominal wal below her ribcage. It’s hard to describe but she did somethign that gave me the creeping heebie jeebies. Most cats have such loose skin that the knee joint can slide up under the skin next to the abdomen. No biggie. Oreo would tuck her knee joint under her ribcage. I’d be pettingher and realize she had put herself into this atanomical anomaly and spaz out something awful. It isn’t like I’d hurl her to the wall but I would have to pick up her three pound bulk - I said she was small and skinny - and rearrange our purring, fur covered sack of bones so things were arranged right.
I don’t know if this sort of thing applies to all cats. Lucia, my white-and-gray cat, has a skin allergy and has occasionally had large patches on her torso shaved for tests. Before the fur grew back in, I noticed that the skin beneath the white fur areas is a sort of dull pinkish color, but the skin under the gray is also gray. I could still see where her markings had been on her bare skin, and the fur grew back in exactly the same color pattern as it had been before.
Purrly is a tuxedo cat with green eyes. Specifically, she’s black on the top and white on the bottom. Her feet and belly are white, and the white reaches up her chest to form a cupid’s bow curve where it meets the black on her neck. Her head is almost completely black except for the whiskers on each side of her nose and the tiny white spot on her chin, just below her lips, to the right of center. Her eyebrow whiskers and the hair inside her ears are black, unlike some tuxedo cats I’ve seen. The most surprising thing about Purrly is her feet. Although the fur is white, all pawpads are black. Every white-footed cat I have ever seen had pink pawpads.
Tarzan is a green-eyed gray tabby, but he’s not completely greytone. There is a lot of tan in his coat. His whiskers are all white. He’s roley poley - when you pick him up he curls up. He really puts on the sweet boy act, too, with the half-closed eyes and the head bumping routine. When he’s really playing it up, he rolls over and shows you the marvelous fur on his belly - it’s spotted much like a cheetah, tan with dark spots.
Fuzzard was so ugly when he was a kitten that I just had to keep him. He was fuzzy (thus his name) and a charcoal gray. When you looked closely at his coat you’d see an undercoat of gray, medium length black hairs, and very long white hairs sticking out all over that would remind you of a porcupine. He looked bedraggled, which was why I had to have him. As he matured, his gray eyes turned green and his strange coat smoothed out to long-haired black. He’s grown to be taller than many cats, and looks imposing with all that fur and his wide, tomcat head. He now has one white whisker.
My cats (all four of them) are already far too spoiled for me to overtly observe them (which they will mistake for worship) for the amount of time it would take to describe their individual physiognomy. There would be absolutely NO living with them if I did that…
Although one (our original rescue) is all black, with just four or five white hairs in a cluster on her chest, and really sparse fur above her eyes reaching to her ears (I think it’s genetic…I’ve seen an identical cat in the neighborhood with the exact same coloring and sparseness).
And another is a beautiful fuzzy calico with a tail like a squirrel (and a brain to match).
And another is a gorgeous gray tabby with a mist gray base and darker gray stripes.
And the last one is an orange tabby who’s kind of rough-looking because she’s not officially OUR cat, but just happens to be the one who lives under our deck. And that we feed.
Angel is our newest cat, and still a bit skittish. She is pure, solid white. She has one blue eye (right) and one green eye (left) but the green eye has a section of blue at the bottom center. Most unusual eyes, and of course they glow red when the light hits them.
:smack: You’re right. That’s what I meant, but I wrote it down really, really badly. :: blushes in shame::
Jimm, that IS a pretty cat. Mine’s a tabby too, with exactly the same striping, ( I always think of him having an “M” on his forehead instead of an inverted “V”) but your cat looks much more “feminine”. Maybe it’s the abundant white eyeshadow, or that her face is so little.
I’ve read somewhere that one of the reasons cats feel so mice to the touch is that their skin, to an extent, is so loose-fitting. Strokign a cat is not like stroking a furry cushion; it’s more like stroking an elastic fur coat that’s loosely attached to its underground.
Looked at cat’s eys in profile, they’re clear hemispheres; the color is only seen if you look from th front.
Minerva is currently laying down between my feet and digesting dinner. I can’t really get a good look at her from this vantange point and I don’t want to either… I’m too busy shivering because I have the damned patio door open for her to run in and out of when she needs to use the bathroom 'cause she’s not really mine and I don’t have a litterbox for her.
Here’s a month old picture of her though. As you can see, she is almost worth the frostbite.
I don’t have a cat, hence nothing useful to contribute to this thread, except for this, of which I’m reminded by all of your posts. Plus I imagine some of you will probably appreciate it.
