Catitudes (Tortie Tuesday Post)

The first cat that ever bonded with me was a “Tortie”–not the one shown here, of course. Long before digital cameras existed, “The Pipsqueak,” or Pippi, was the junior boardinghouse cat, a recently acquired stray who always looked half-grown. Apart from her squeaky (Siamese-type) voice and mottled three-color coat, Pippi stands out in memory as the gentlest cat I ever knew. After more than a year I realized that she did have claws, when I saw her hunting in the park. Pippi liked to curl up on my bed at night, and I had never felt the tip of a single claw.

Pippi was unique. I’m well on the way to having lived with 100 cats by now, and none of them was quite as careful with humans as Pippi.

I’ve learned that cats’ personalities are largely shaped by experience (and gender and medical condition) but seem to develop from a genetic base that correlates with color.

Black cats may be wild or tame, sweet or hostile, but they tend to be more energetic than other cats. (The melanin in the fur seems to bond chemically with adrenalin, producing a lively, intense personality.)

Red or orange cats are usually (not always) male. Female cats with red or orange coats have normal kittens. They can be tame or wild or friendly or hostile. There is, however, a tendency for these cats to be a little bigger, more independent, more aggressive, than their black, gray, or white siblings.

Gray tabby (either “blotched/swirled” or “mackerel” tabby) is the most typical cat color and seems to correlate with the most typical cats…except when it doesn’t, of course.

Pale-colored cats–the ones that are born white or off-white, then grow up pale gray, pale orange, or “Siamese”–are the ones I’ve learned to watch out for. I once wrote an article about how living with those peachy-creamy, because they had more complex personalities. ” It would; these cats can be very devoted pets, very affectionate, very clever, if they’re treated well.

They do not, in my experience, start out like promising pets. Pale orange cats tend to be small, skinny, sneaky-looking kittens. The first time they get close to humans, or the first few times, they’re likely to hiss, spit, even bite. What a shame, because, if you ignore the nipping (how dangerous is a month-old kitten?), they quickly learn to trust and love you. They like a lot of attention; in a multi-cat family they want to be somebody’s favorite cat. In my social cat family there’ve been a few pale orange kittens each year. None of them grew up mean. Some of them were especially social and “nice” even to other cats.

Siamese cats have a reputation for being sneaky and unpredictable. My junior cat Sisawat almost deserves it. I want to emphasize that Sisawat, who started out looking almost like a purebred Blue Point Siamese–too early–and matured into a “blue” grey crossbreed cat, is not mean. She is moody. She does not necessarily want to be picked up or even stroked by humans, or to snuggle the other cats’ kittens, and will growl to let us know when she wants to be left alone. If she’s in a growly mood, I can handle her–with a very firm hand!–but it’s a good policy, whenever possible, to leave her alone. She won’t bite (me, anyway), but she will growl, snarl, whine, refuse to listen, refuse to cooperate, refuse even to eat, and run away the minute I release my firm hand.

Three-colored cats, whether they have distinct patches (“calico”) or mottled coats (“tortoiseshell,” “tortie”), are almost always female. (If male they’re sterile and often physically defective.) Whether they’re especially beautiful or especially funny-looking they always seem to know they’re special and distinctive. They expect to be admired. They seem to take it literally when people refer to female cats as “queens.”

But I was greatly surprised to read a poll in the Kingsport Times-News that reported that more cat owners reported being bitten or scratched by a three-colored cat than by any other color pattern, even a Siamese.

I have been bitten and scratched–deliberately, consensually, not dangerously or in anger–by one calico cat. That was the feral kitten Polly. Growing up literally in an alley in Kingsport, Tennessee, Polly and her social cat family doubted that Polly’s big brother Mackerel (a classic gray mackerel tabby) could train humans to feed all of the cats. Even after they’d been delivered to my home, where they’d all skittered off into the woods, and been tracked down and called to meals by Mac, it took them several weeks to get close to me. Polly was the first to approach me; after playing chase-the-switch with Mac and me (and demonstrating that, unlike normal cats, she and Mac would always hunt as a team) she tested me by lightly nipping and scratching my arm. After convincing herself that I wasn’t going to hurt her she became friendly and gentle. However, the night after her mother died, Polly stood up on her hind legs behind me and lightly scratched the backs of my legs, as if she were an indoor cat scratching furniture. I hadn’t expected that–I’ve never seen another cat do it–but it seemed clear, at the time, that Polly was simply announcing to the other cats, “I’m the Queen now; this human is my property.”

Then there was Polly’s kitten Mogwai, so named because the freakish placement of black, orange, and cream spots on her face made her look more like the harmless fuzzy stage of the “Gremlins” than like a cat. People always stared at Mogwai, and said things that seemed to ruffle her feelings, like “Is that a cat?” Mogwai was a kind, nurturing big sister to her litter mates and a benevolent Queen when she grew up, but once she did seem to have been goaded beyond endurance. My deliberately dumb cousin Oogesti, who was the proprietor of his own Cat Sanctuary and a great friend and benefactor to mine, fashion, “Is ‘Mogwai’ some kind of devil name? There’s something not right about that cat…” Whereupon Mogwai, who had been purring on my knee, stood up, transferred herself to Oogesti’s lap, and sank all of her claws through his shirt. He deserved that, I said when he yelled, and Oogesti admitted that he had. He’d forgotten that Mogwai was not only social, but one of a tiny minority even among social cats who listen to human words.

But apart from that…I’ve always felt able to understand, and to some extent predict, the three-colored cats in my life. Basically I agree that they’re wonderful and let them walk up one side of me and down the other, except when it’s really necessary to shout “No.” Most of the time, most of them do seem to understand “No.”

The social cat family has included several three-colored cats. I’ve blogged about the cleverness and wonderfulness of each one. None of them has been spayed, although I’d be willing to let Irene be spayed if any of the people who carry on about the “need” to sterilize pets wanted to put up the cash. (No questions about my “needs.” They are the ones who need to put their money where their mouths are.) I think social cats are so fantastic I’d hate to deprive the world of any viable social kittens.

But perhaps normal cats aren’t as nice as social cats, someone might suggest. I would agree with that. I still haven’t seen the “unpredictable, mean” side of a three-colored cat yet. Pippi was gentle. Muffin, a feral tortoiseshell cat my favorite aunt kept as a pet for seventeen years, was mostly friendly. Cali, a normal calico cat who lived with me for a short time, was jealous and possessive of me, and surly toward other cats, but not mean.

In the social cat family…well…Gwai never became a pet. There was also Charlotte Mew, one of a litter who succumbed to “Manx Syndrome” (hereditary birth defects) about the time kittens become pets or don’t; the thing about Charlotte Mew was that, the day before she died, she was trying to nurture and encourage her sister Emily Purr and brother Arthur Cat Doyle, who died, anyway, just before she did. Charlotte was Manx, despite having a complete tail, and trundled when she walked–but she was never, ever, mean.

Neither were Patchnose, Grayzel, Bisquit (if we count Bisquit), Candice, Iris, Irene, Ivy, Heather (the one in the picture above), or Shelly, ever mean. Each of these three-colored cats distinguished herself in a family of extraordinarily clever and lovable cats, partly by being unusually nice. Even for a social cat family who routinely rear kittens communally and hunt in teams.

I will say, though, that tough little Polly never lost touch with her Inner Lion. Mac was quite a large cat when they grew up; for an unaltered male cat he was unusually friendly and peaceable, but if anyone threatened a kitten or disrespected me, his whole look and personality changed. Polly was tiny, but she could be every bit as fierce as Mac. Once while I was stuck in town in snow a stray canine, the kind you might call “overgrown coyote” or “coy-dog” or even “lone red wolf,” threatened the kittens. I came home to find tracks in the snow showing that one large cat and one small cat had followed, chivied, at some points even ridden, one very large coy-dog, to the point where a man had been able to shoot the thing. He had left the “coyote brush” with my cats as a sort of toy or souvenir. Each of the coy-dog’s toes had been close to the size of Polly’s whole paw. And there wasn’t a real mark on Polly.

Not that Polly was mean, even to dogs–only fearless. Another time some puppies that had been abandoned at a dump site found their way to my home. Mac and Polly were half-grown kittens; the puppies were about the same size. The two kittens herded one of the puppies into a humane trap. I baited a second trap and gave the cats fifteen minutes, and they herded the other puppy into that trap. Then I released both puppies into the custody of a relative who was willing to raise and train them.

Some small share of Polly’s formidable personality passed down to her great-granddaughters Iris and Heather. It’s true that they, and also Ivy, never ceased to surprise me…but always by new, unprecedented displays of cleverness and ability, never by meanness or grumpiness. They, and quieter Irene and shorter-lived Shelly, were born and raised pets. I used to sleep with Iris draped across my neck.

Heather and Irene have had one litter of kittens apiece, each year, early in spring. (I’m not sure how consciously they do it, but social cats do practice birth control; of their various techniques the most obvious is nursing kittens for six months, and cats who’ve not given birth, themselves, participate in this.) They have brought up the kittens together. They’ve not always produced a three-colored kitten, but this year Irene has a classic tortoiseshell daughter (Violet) and Heather has a pale tortoiseshell, or grayzel, daughter (Peri).

All seven kittens in the combined litter were born and raised pets, like their mothers. Violet clearly intends to be a Queen. Peri is younger, smaller, a follower more than a leader, and more inclined to cuddle. Neither shows any tendency to act “mean.”

I have no idea what those people who’ve been scratched and bitten by their calico cats were doing wrong. I’m sure it was something they were doing wrong.