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Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets.
Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets.
Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
Possibly a little heavy for a casual thread, but sadly my partner and I are getting ready to say goodbye to our boy Sterling tomorrow.
Unfortunately he has bone cancer and treatment would involve amputation of a leg, and he's already an older cat with arthritis. There's a fairly high chance the cancer would spread despite the amputation (it may already have done so), so it's more than likely that even if we went ahead with the amputation we'd be buying him a few months of degrading health at most, so we've decided to say goodbye while he's still doing well. Fortunately we're able to have a vet come to our house for the procedure, so he'll be happy and comfortable in his last moments, and until then he's been getting all the churus he can stomach.
Sterling is simply the sweetest cat I have ever met, and we will miss him sorely. He loves to burrow under blankets (as in the picture above) and most nights we would jump on the bed to snuggle on my chest before he went to sleep. In his entire life he's only ever hissed once (when his tail was run over by a chair, so it was justified), and even vets and groomers we've taken him to love him. Even now he is a beautiful boy despite a shoulder that has basically exploded and fairly heavy pain medication.
I'm grateful to have had him in my life, even if it still feels too short.
I really do adore my moron cat, and his stomach trouble is clearly my fault for leaving a dish of duck fat on the counter overnight to congeal. But honestly, having the house redecorated in greasy cat vomit twice today was not a thrill.
This doesn't indicate the slightest regret or remorse, either.
The wry smile of a man who thinks he got away with his crimes.
I think I'm experiencing a little frequency illusion here because he looks like a grown up version of two of my current fosters which happen to be the first white cats I've ever encountered.
It's not a great picture - Dash isn't white, he's a flame-point Siamese mix who's gotten his summer fade on. The tail and ears are still bright orange, and he's got the legendary One Orange Brain Cell.
And looking at your fosters, there's a good chance they're Siamese whose color points haven't developed yet. Noses and feet seem to have a bit of tint. I can't see their tails, but the tail is usually where color-pointing shows up first because it's at the lowest body temperature. I got Dash at age 5 months, and it can take a while for the more dilute color points (gray = "lilac point", orange = "flame point") to manifest.
Oh wow that's cool, TIL. They definitely have some darker spots on their feet and and some color around their nose and mouth that looks a bit like a Homer Simpson goatee, plus their ears are very similar to Dash's.
Too early to tell with the eye color, but if their eyes remain blue, congrats, you've got Meezers. [The partial albinism is due to a single recessive gene, and the rest could be anything - it's not uncommon for a litter of miscellaneous feral kittens to have a random color-pointed one.]
Siamese are also in demand for adoption. Aside from the pretty colors, they produce less saliva and dander allergens than other common cat breeds. Which is how we wound up with our pair - spouse is mildly allergic, and Siamese were the first cats he'd encountered that didn't make him itch. They're not an allergen-free breed, though, and shouldn't be given to people with more severe sensitivities.
Health concerns: they're often not as well able to see in the dark as normal cats, have thinner coats, and may be prone to sinus and dental problems. Crossed eyes and other (rarely serious) neurological problems can come with the mutant tyrosinase gene that creates the temperature-sensitive coat colors.
There are other health issues with purebred Siamese cats - according to my vet, you're unlikely to encounter them with kittens from a mixed litter. If you can, get the kittens accustomed to having their teeth brushed daily. Since mine weren't trained to tolerate tooth cleaning, I've got to take them in for dental hygiene with anesthesia every couple of years.
Beware of foster fail - Siamese cats tend to be more affectionate, vocal, and dependent on humans than others. They're agile, smart, and get where they shouldn't be, but very trainable and generally amenable to living with other pets and kids. It's possible they're all snuggles because of the vision problems and lack of an insulating undercoat, but they're really lovely to live with.