From: king@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (joyce.l.king)
Subject: What kind of cats do I have?
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:28:11 GMT
Keywords: longish hair, hairy ears, silky undercoat, friendly, outdoors

I moved to the country a little over a year ago and inherited a band
of cats, all the offspring of one female.  There were the remains of
two litters, followed by a third soon after.  I figured they were all
hers because she let all of them nurse.  

After I turned off the baby machine, and placed 11 cats and kittens
in carefully-selected homes, I am left with the mom cat (Griz) and
one of her sons, Buffer.

I've never had cats like these, and I'm curious about their breeding.
Their hair is long, but not as long as the hair on my daughter's 
full-bred persian.  Buffer's is thicker than Griz's, and he has an
incredibly silky undercoat that mats very easily.  Griz's hair does
not mat much.  Buffer must be brushed daily (when I moved there, he
had almost no hair at all, just scabs where the mats had pulled out.
One mat was lying in the woods...it was like a piece of thick carpet).

Buffer is buff colored...not yellow, buff...a rich cream color.  Griz
is medium grey with muted patches of buff.  Her kittens were black, 
buff, grey, calico, etc.  Some were longhaired like her, and others were
short haired.

Griz is silent and, while she LOVES people, she is not demanding.  Buffer
is very vocal and has meows for hungry, lonely, OUT, brush me, where have
you been?, it's about time you got home, and so on.  Griz accepts everyone,
Buffer is shy with strangers for a short while.

Both cats are easily trained, and will not scratch furniture or get on the
table or counter after they've been told once.  

Their ears are decidedly hairy...I'd call them tufted, except the hair does
not grow out of the tips of the ears, like a bobcat, but rather out of the
edges all around the ears.  Also, Buffer grows the most amazing winter coat
that sheds drastically.  His summer coat is very different from his winter
coat, unlike Griz, who looks about the same all year 'round.

Both cats are CRAZY about going outside.  I don't know if that's because
that's where they lived before I came along, or whether it's in their genes.
I'd prefer they stay in...but they'd prefer not, and Buffer, especially, can
make his wants well known.  So they spend most of the time in the house and
a few hours after dark outside.  They always come when called.  They don't
go far...just out into the woods behind the house.  My place is pretty remote,
so there's not much danger, except from fleas.  Hunting is their passion. 
I make them come in when I go to bed. 

I've read postings about Maine Coons.  The personality traits seem to be like
Buffer.  He's large, but certainly not 25 pounds!  More like 13-14.  

So---what do I have...are these coat differences simply a mixed bag?  Does
anything sound like a breed?  By the way, these are the two best cats I've
ever had.  They never do ANYTHING bad.  I toilet trained them, so they used
the toilet until my son came home from college for the summer and kept closing
the door.  So now they use a litter box.  I'm sure they will go back to using
the toilet when he goes back to school...they are that easy to get along with.


-- 
                       Joyce Andrews King

Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats