Tricolor cat proves to be an anomaly

UNION-TRIBUNE ^ | August 8, 2007 | Elena Gaona

[Ready4Freddy]

Meant to ping you to my post, DancesWithCats.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thanks R.R. for catching this one, very interesting, a lot that I did not know.

[SunkenCiv]

Phinny, you see, is a male tortoiseshell, a tricolor cat. He's not quite the missing link in the cat world, but is undoubtedly a rare quirk of nature, for reasons of genetics.

someone I know once told me that all-white cats can be male or female, but that the all-white male cats are always sterile.

Of course, in Phinny's case, he's sterile now...

[jwh_Denver]

Ewwwwwwwww!!!

[Seadog Bytes]

meow.. I mean ‘ping’.

[Tabi Katz]

someone I know once told me that all-white cats can be male or female, but that the all-white male cats are always sterile.

I never heard that, but I did hear they're usually deaf. (??)

[Biggirl]

A truly handsome tri-color kitty. =^..^=

[pbmaltzman]

Somewhere on messybeast.com, I read of a few--very few-- tortoiseshell males, even a few who were claimed to be fertile. But like it says here, they're extremely rare.

I've been partial to torties ever since I rescued a beautiful black tortie kitten who had been dumped in the alley behind my apartment house in 1989. She looked as if someone had flicked random bits of paint on a black velvet background. She was green-eyed. She looked like a miniature lioness in wintertime, with her long fur.

I currently have three cats, all torties:

A 10-year-old who has some smoke coloring in her neck ruff area. She has green eyes and is more medium-haired. She has three black legs and one front paw that looks like it's been dipped in bleach.

A 6-year-old who is a red tortie... waves of sable, cream, and black. Gold eyes. She's really gorgeous and seems to know it--she's certainly got the mixture of sweet and bratty which some of us call "tortie-tude."

The youngest, about 2 years old, is tortie-and-white. Four white feet. Extremely long fur in wintertime. A splash of white on her ruff and on her belly. A splash of beige on her face, and green eyes. She has a tail that resembles a drum major's plume when carried upright.

She looks like a tortie on most of her body--red-and-black swirls. But she also has some fairly large blotches of color on her front legs and her belly, which is more characteristic of a calico. Some cats aren't so neatly categorized as either torties or calicos by their coloring; I've seen some other torties like this.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[LantzALot]

We were not “cat people,” but on two occasions were adopted by cats. The first was a tortoise-shell, the colors arranged in tabby-stripes. A friend told us that they are always female. The second was a calico, looking very much like the cat in “Monet’s Garden.” We were also told that they are always female.

[MarkL]

Did somebody say "Tricolor?"

Well, this IS a DuCATi!

Mark

[vetvetdoug]

Cats that are both inside and outside are in need of strategic deworming for good health. Insects, mice, birds, snails and other hunted items carry parasites that can be detrimental to the health of the cat. Deworming monthly with Heartgard for cats will take care of many of the parasites, this is a monthly treatment. The CDC recommends deworming cats every three months in a strategic move to keep parasites from establishing in the cat. A "fecal" or "Worm check" is a screening technique that is not foolproof...20% of the fecals checked will be false negatives. The rule of thumb for fecals is that a minimum of five tests that are negative for parasites is the only way of determining that the cat is 90% negative for parasites...its easier to practice strategic deworming for the cat's health.

We have been doing this in my practice for over 16 years because of the parasite population here in the SE US.

[bert]

This is indeed a queer story

[Slings and Arrows]

Thanks for the info. All my cats are strictly indoor, which may be why my vet never mentioned it.

[Sue Perkick]

I was lucky up until this year. Neither had ever had worms in their lives. The cat & the dog have both had tapeworms in the last month. The fleas have been terrible. Even the Advantage/Advantix is not working as well. And no matter what you do you can’t control people who won’t control their pets that run loose in your yard bringing their treasures with them. Tapeworms are flat & segmented. I saw it when I took the dog out & the cat was getting thin. Vet said they came from eating a flea.

[Darksheare]

Ping-eth.

[Cailleach]

There is a tricolor male stray here. Sweetest little fella ever, he’d be in our house if it weren’t for Bella, the obnoxious, who feels that she should be the only cat in the world. We carried him to the door, and she ran from the window where she had been glowering at us all to the door spitting and snarling, and the little guy...he just didn’t get it...he kept leaning out, sniffing. Put the Bella beast in her soft kitty carrier so he could sniff her and keep his nose...she was so mad that she was scooting the kitty carrier across the floor. So...in the end, Jerrie (named by the Princess of course...yes, it’s short for Mungojerrie) is outside, comes to our house every evening to eat and play with the Princess, and spends the night planting lovely kitty paw prints on the hood of our car. Spends the days sleeping, usually in our pumpkin patch (the big leaves are pretty shady). And Grizabella, who thinks she should rule the world, is content to glare at the pumpkin patch from the living room window...and occasionally hiss. For the record, Rummy (for those of you reading this who are not family, yes, Rummy is short for Rumpelteazer...but...he’s a dog, not a cat and...well...he’s a he...not a she...don’t ask me, ask the Princess, she named him) loves Jerrie, and wishes that he would let him kiss him all over his little furry head.

Oh yeah, back to my reason for posting! We assumed that Jerrie was a she (and originally called “her” Demeter)...that ended the day “she” let the Princess pick him up...she carried “her” to us with “her” belly and lower exposed, and “she” is definitely, indeed a Tom...in need of a visit to the dreaded snip snip office!

I had just assumed it was unusual to see a male tricolor...not that it was all uber rare...I’m going to have to have a talk with the Bella, convince her that Jerrie is special and needs a safe home (and a trip to the snip snip office).

[Titan Magroyne]

“How do you know if they have worms? They don’t gain weight? It pops out in their stool?”

Depends on the type of worm. Hookworms can have a noticeable effect on a pet’s nutritional absorption. I’m not sure if they are visible to the naked eye in the animal’s stool. A quick online search says hookworms can be absorbed through the skin or can be passed through mother’s milk. Apparently they can also infest soil until an unlucky host comes by.

Tapeworm segments are visible on stools and around the pet’s anus as little flat grains of rice. Compared to hookworms they do little damage to a pet, but are rather gross when your charming feline brushes one off against you, LOL. It your kitty cleaned a flea off her skin or consumed it on a prey animal, that’s how she got a tapeworm. My vet whom I’ve known for many years will diagnose that over the phone and allow me to pick up wormer without bringing the cat in for a visit, which is nice, but then I’m left struggling to get it into my cat ...

The worst worm infestation I’ve seen was in a pitbull seized from a fighting ring. The animal control officer said the owner had been trying to starve it into aggression. Along with deliberate starvation - skin and bones, just lethargic - the dog had worms so bad that, as was explained to me, he had to fight the well-meaning urge to fatten up the animal to normal weight with large amounts of food. Too much food at one time (and I assume he also dewormed) would have forced too many worms to unhook from the intestines at once, causing life-threatening blood loss.

[MrB]

That was a corruption of my (and my two-yr-old’s) favorite video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wMHcpMmV9g

[Sue Perkick]

They make crushable tabs. Just mix it with a tablespoon of canned food & you should have no problem.