I had one kitten that trusted me absolutely right from Day 1. I picked him up at the adoption center to see what he was like, and he immediately climbed up on my shoulder, stuck his nose in my ear and started purring. He had me at that point, but he refused to let me put him down after that, he dug his claws into my shirt, like, “Nope, you picked me up, now you’re stuck with me!”
He would fall asleep in my arms, and just go completely limp. Even if I moved him around, flipped him over, turned him end for end, he wouldn’t wake up, he was just, “Yeah, whatever, man, I’m good!”
I still miss that guy, I didn’t have him very long, but he was the only cat I ever had that was that relaxed with me. Just total trust.
It seems I missed another key attribute: the purr : Oh well, mostly I just wanted to get people to talk about their kitties. Yes, the purr is very good.
Does anyone else have a kitty who trills instead of meows? My little Newman sounds like Cardi B.
One of my current cats (the brother to Scruffy Cat mentioned above) used to say “prrrt” a lot. I think that was his brother’s actual name, because he hasn’t said it since Scruffy Cat died*.
On the plus side, Scruffy Cat used to be the only one who purred, but after he died, his brother started picking up the slack. I think he figured Prrrt did enough purring for the both of them.
*On that note, I suspect the current cat’s actual name is “meow-ff”, a meow with a kind of nasal sniff at the end, because that’s what Prrt always used to say. I imagine most of their conversations were basically, “Hey! Bob!” “What?” “Hey, Joe!” “What?” over and over again.
I had a cat who had a foot fetish. He loved to be petted by feet. If you failed to acquiesce, he would work to remove your shoes, then your socks, and then he would stand underneath your foot and buck up so that your foot would make contact with the area just above his tail. It was hilarious.
I had a cat who had a shoe fetish. I wore cheapy shoes made of synthetic stuff, but my friend Nancy was really into good quality leather high heels. When she would come over and kick off her shoes, this cat would just stuff her face down into the toe and loll around ecstatically until she put herself in a stupor.
I’ve lived with 3 declawed cats, two that’d been declawed in the late 80s or early 90s and the third probably around 2000 given her age, and their toe beans looked and felt the same as any other cats’.
My calico trills. It’s the cutest sound. She also has multi-colored toe beans. My tabby talks rather than trills and she is quite the chatterbox. She also has a purr loud enough to hear in the next room. I think she startled herself a few times when she was a kitten.
Everyone so far who has named a “softest fur” place is wrong. It’s the tiny spot just behind and under the outer base of the ear. Softest fur on a cat is right there.
But, I can’t pick a favorite part. Up button, paddy-paws (toe beans), chin, ears, purr, tail, belly. Too hard to choose.
I will say our newest kitty, Ollie, has the floofiest tail I’ve ever seen on a short haired cat. I think he’s part snow leopard.
I had a stray cat I fed that trilled so musically that I said that she sang for her supper, and I christened her Jenny Lind. No one ever got the reference.
I’m fascinated by my cat Benny’s tail. He uses it as a probe when doing his figure-8s around my legs. It’s a little embarrassing actually. No, he doesn’t probe anything in my genital or posterior regions, but still, it seems like he gets overly excited during these tail assaults. I believe more research is needed to learn about the psycho-motor mechanics of cat tails.
No love for the horns? I guess a lot of folks don’t know about cat horns because most shelters and veterinarians will dehorn (remove the buds) kittens at a very young age. If they don’t, the horns begin to sprout at about 18-24 months. If you’re ever lucky enough to rescue a feral kitten, and you’re feeling bold about its future, ask the vet to leave the horn buds alone when they do the spay/neuter procedure. We did just this when we got our two kitties from the junk yard three years ago. There are obvious drawback of course, headboops require some accommodation and they can be pretty hard on the furniture, but it’s all worth it to watch these cute littermates wrestle each other into a corner. Yeah, the horns are definitely the best part of a cat.
What a gift.
: Oh well, mostly I just wanted to get people to talk about their kitties. Yes, the purr is very good.
My tabby talks rather than trills and she is quite the chatterbox. She also has a purr loud enough to hear in the next room. I think she startled herself a few times when she was a kitten.