Greetings! Just the other day I was busily discussing (in between naps, a bit of stretching, and feeding of course) with my litter mates the advantages or not of different fur styles and colours. Overhearing our Humans (respectfully, I am giving them a capital ‘H’) one heard that when it comes to homing, quite often it is difficult to place the mainly black or black cats amongst us, and we wondered why…
…as you can see from my picture I’m a lovely mixture of silver grey tabby and pure white (takes a lot of cleaning, let me tell you). My sisters are tabby, silver tabby and white and our brother ‘Jeeves’ is mainly black with white paws and bib. They had absolutely no problems in being homed… Well, to be honest, we came for ‘the weekend’ only, but kind of, well, moved in. So possibly our circumstances aren’t typical!
Anyway considering our other housemates, there are three black cats, Shirley, a shorthair, a long haired lad, Steggy, and a petite long haired girl, Tilda.
Now, I understand from history that black cats have had a bad ‘press’ being associated with witches, witchcraft, bad luck and black magic
(I could certainly understand that regarding Shirley, who’s default setting is grumpy, vocal and rather hissy and spitty, and when She’s really unhappy, She gives Herself a treat and gets even crankier). I could certainly see Her sitting on the back of some witches broomstick! She’s not too bad really, just as long as you do everything She wants and likes, She’s perfectly affable… very ‘Human’ in a way!
Steggy is totally different. He has a wonderful long soft coat and a magnificent ‘bouffant’ feather-like tail, He looks quite superb sailing up the garden path with the wind behind Him in full ‘fluff’!
But most annoyingly from a short hairs’ point of view, His fur always looks good – rather like one of those long-furred Human Ladies on the moving picture screen thing that keep telling us ‘They’re worth it’ – though I’m not quite sure what ‘it’ may be.
Tilda is probably the nicest, most inoffensive cat I’ve met. She also has lovely soft black fur. In fact, I’ve often heard our Male Human lament on how He once had such similar colour and amount, and rather strangely, when Tilda’s been snoozing high up on the back of our wing back chair, He’s been seen laying Her tail over His noggin and pretending its His own, much to the bewilderment of others that happen to be in the room. It’s certainly not cruel, Tilda couldn’t care less, but I have to say I think it’s a bit strange, but then there are quite a few things Humans do, that I find, ‘ahem’, unusual…
Anyways, in their own ways, Shirley, Steggy and Tilda are smart looking cats, black is such a svelte (and slimming) colour, even Shirley, who has, shall we say, some under tummy ‘flaps’ (MEOW, Gollum!) can look rather slender from most angles, except when She’s running, those flaps start swinging, and She looks ready to take off…
Black also is, dare I say it, a pretty cool colour, it generally goes with anything, any colour scheme, furniture, flooring or bedding, all can benefit from the addition of a sleek black feline presence.
Sailors love ’em too – they were regarded as the ‘luckiest’ type of ship’s cat.
Also, black cats can, and do, have the most beautiful colour eyes, which really contrast so well with their fur, they have wonderful tones within that fur too – nothing is truly black, really, and they’re not, as far as I know (in our house at least) involved in a local witches coven or in league with the Devil – though thinking about Shirley, hmm, maybe I’m not too sure now!
My point is, why not give a Black Cat a chance? Its best not to rely on a picture, come and see them in the fur!
They’re as interesting, characterful, varied and attractive as any other shade or type and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, I’m not trying to rehome our three, well, I might, just might, make an exception for Shirley!
Just joking Shirls – honest!
Happy Purring ’til next time,
Gollum.