My sister allowed herself to be adopted by Bill today. I have never known my sister to be an animal person. She had a fish once. Bill has totally won the whole family over though. She has told me she loves him at least 5 times in the past 3 hours. She’s so cute when she’s not being her normal hard-as-steel self.
Anyway…
Can any of you tell what his ancestry might be? He’s a gorgeous guy. I wish I could see him in person. She said his fur is soft like angora.
Really ancestry on a tabby like that is impossible to say. Might be pedigreed parents, might be twenty straight generations of back-alley assignations.
I’m betting on the twenty straight generations of random breeding, myself. Most cats have not been as carefully bred as dogs have been, and most dogs haven’t been that closely supervised in breeding, either. It only takes one tom and one queen to get together at the right time, and you have kittens. And the cats don’t check each other’s pedigrees when they meet, or at any other time either. They are only interested in whether the other cat is of the opposite sex. Hell, queens don’t even care about the species, or whether the potential sex partner is alive or an inanimate object!
Bill looks like an attractive result of random breeding to me, though I’m not an expert on this.
I’m a big fan of his feet, with the dark soles and the light tops. Very distinctive.
Bill looks like the kind of cat who knows he is awesome and can use his telepathic mind-control powers to communicate this fact to all around. Watch out.
I have a little lady here who very much resembles Bill the Cat. She is less tabby and more pointed like a Siamese. Her fur is as soft as an ermine. Her breed is Balinese. Based on the texture and color of Bill the Cat. I would say that he has some Balinese also.
I’d guess there may be a Bengal lurking in his background. The “marbled” side is one characteristic of Bengal, and they all have spots on their tummy with black feet pads and a black top of the tail.
However, who knows? Makes no difference, beautiful cat.
You guys are so sweet. He is beautiful, isn’t he? I’m totally jealous and I’m suffering from massive animal jealousy. I have no pets at the moment and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t even pet Bill because he’s in upstate NY.
My sister loved your responses too. She doesn’t actually care what he is - other than hers. She was just curious. She thinks Dopers are smart and funny people.
As long as we’re on this topic, isn’t there some special breed that has super duper soft fur like this? I was at an acquaintances home once, she was selling her cat, and said that this breed of cat (whatever it was) was known for it’s soft fur and it’s sociable, loving temperament (ie, liked being around people, being petted, didn’t mind being held, etc)-- but I can’t remember what it was now.
As for congo’s sis’s cat, even if it’s not a breed, I do love that super soft fur!
ETA: want to clarify that I’m not a bred-cat snob— I’m all for shelter kitties and wish the cat and dog breed-mania would just go away. Too many mutt kitties and dogs need good homes.
Kittykittykittykitty!
