How I got my tabby markings

 

Striped tabbies have the ancestral tabby pattern

Spots, stripes or blotches, we tabbies have beautiful coat markings. I am a silver tabby but tabby markings can be found in beige or brown coated cats and a few gingers too. It's the background colour that varies.

Now some human geneticists have been studying just how it happens... in order to find out how the leopard got its spots. (Did you spot the Kipling reference there?)

First they found a gene they called Taqpep. Depending on how this gene worked, a tabby was striped or blotched and (guess what) cheetahs were just large tabbies when it came to coat colourings.

Then they investigated further and found that tabby markings happen very early before birth. The skin surrounding the feline fetus starts growing thicker or thinner. This is even before there are any melanocytes, the cells which are responsible for different colours.

Then slowly the hair folicules develop and with them the colouring, the melanin. Some folicules have dark melanin called pheomelanin and some have light melanin called eumelanin.

This coincides with the tabby patterning. The eumelanin defines the background colour to the stripes, blotches or spots.

They then looked back even further into the earliest days of the embryo and found  the patterning could be recognised at an even earlier stage. The Taqpep gene influenced the pattern of how a protein coding gene Dkk4 was expressed.

With me? Difficult if you are not a geneticist.

Their conclusion was that it was a reaction-diffusion model, a sort of genetic game whereby a colouring gene was inhibited or  expressed.

And all this led back to a very clever human Alan Turing who in the l950s suggested this particular kind of gene expression.

As for me, I don't understand all of this but what I do know is that tabbies are the most beautiful of all cats, whether they are pussycats like me or big fierce cats like tigers.

PS. Want to know more? Put Developmental genetics of color pattern establishment in cats into Google Scholar!

Indoor only humans, stop cuddling.

Covid has made normal people into indoor-only humans. Which means they have been emotionally needy. They have sought our attention and constantly demanded cuddles.

Now the dilemma facing cats, whose humans do not go out of the front door (that large cat flap often opening out into a street), is being recognised. Stress. That is what we cats are feeling, as humans become dependent upon us.

The feline welfare manager of Battersea cat and dog home says ‘Having the constant companionship of their owners during the pandemic may have left some cats feeling as though they have lost part of their territory or have less control over when and for how long they receive a fuss.’

Until this pandemic most humans led indoor and outdoor lives - leaving the house at regular intervals five days a week and leaving us to get on with our own lives. For some of this it meant a noonday snooze on the bed. For others, it meant visiting the old age pensioner down the road who would offer a second breakfast. 

Lockdown has meant humans stayed at home. Almost all the time. They call it  "working from home." Though heaven knows what they do with their so called laptops (a cat on the lap is one thing: a digital device is quite another). 

Many of us have felt positively harassed. We have been petted too much. Picked up too often. Cuddled when we don't want it. Our routines have been interfered with. Our serenity has been severely upset by constant demands for affection.

Purrlease stop. Go back to the office leave us alone.

Take Your Cat to the Vet Day? No.

 

Last Sunday was Take Your Cat to the Vet Day.... what on earth do humans think they are doing.

Take your cat to the vet day? I think not. For one thing it's a Sunday and the human will be charged much more money than normal.

For another, - how can I put it? - CATS HATE VETS. 

Vets smell bad. They smell of dog and disinfectant and pain and animal fear. They stab you with needles. They force your mouth open. They stick things into your ears. They even stick things up your butt.

No wonder some co-resident cats attack their feline companions when they return from the vet surgery, smelling of vets.

I admit that I purr on the veterinary table. Most cats don''t but I do.

Just because I purr when I am at the vet's surgery being handled by one of these human monsters. It doesn't mean I am happy. Nor does it mean that I love the vet.

I purr to comfort myself. And maybe I purr in the forlorn hope that the vet will listen to me and stop hurting me.

Humans, do not deceive yourselves.  CATS HATE VETS.

Disabled cats have special talents

 

Minty, National Cat of the Year 2021 c. Cats Protection

At last! 

Disabled cats are being recognised, not just for their disabilities, but for their virtues and strengths. Cats with disabilities have something special to offer in the way of caring for humans. 

This is Minty, who was honoured by the human charity Cats Protection, for her valuable work caring for Connor, a boy with learning difficulties and cerebral palsy. Minty has only three legs but has nevertheless helped Connor learn to climb stairs. His empathy and calmness aids Connor when he suffers an emotional meltdown.

His adult female human says: "Having only three legs never stops Minty enjoying life, and I think that rubs off on Connor. Together they are unstoppable, whatever comes their way.  Minty's a really inspirational cat and we love him to bits."

Cats with disabilities in cat shelters are just waiting to adopt a suitable human. Don't pass them by.

Save a life for International Cat Day

It's International Cat Day and I have a message for all humans from my friend, Tilly. If you are lucky enough to have a cat in your life, celebrate this special day by doing one of four things:

• Donate some money to your local cat shelter
• Volunteer at your local cat shelter.
• Adopt a homeless adult cat - preferably an old one .
• Foster a homeless cat.

I am lucky enough to be a pedigree cat, but there are literally millions of cats, some of them starving and desperate, who need human help. 

Take my friend, Tilly. She was miserable and terrified  in a cat shelter where nobody had adopted her for almost a year. She had given up hope.

Now, eleven years later, she is happy and loved.

You can change a cat's life by doing just one of those four things today.

PS. Tilly was rescued by Sunshine Cat Rescue, a small charity in Oxfordshire, which is always short of money. If you can spare a pound or a dollar, please do. Click here