Sunday, February 26, 2006

Minxes

The dogs aren't the only household pets. I also have 2 Manx cats. Here is Seven (yes, once upon a time, she WAS the 7th cat), who is unusually a ginger female. Colour in cats is sex-linked, so ginger cats are normally only males. She is a "stumpie", with just a little bit of tail. And here is her daughter Grizabella, who is a long-haired tortoiseshell with no tail at all (a "rumpie"). Many people think a cat's tail is used for balance, and that Manx cats must be clumsy but the opposite is true. These cats are very agile and are amazing climbers. I've always been amused by the comments of people seeing them for the first time - apart from being often asked what happened to their tails from people who think they've lost them in an accident, they've been referred to as "lynx" cats, or even funnier, as "minx" cats.

2 comments:

Webfrau said...

Are your cats hunters too?
My in-laws used to have two "stumpy" males - they were huge and used to regularly catch large rabbits. They'd gobble them up and then not need feeding for a couple of days!

Anonymous said...

My *stumpie* (who was cream with ginger "points" like a siamese) didn't run, he hopped like a rabbit. I had to give him to a friend who raises Manx cats because Angus (aka Dufus) was very aggressive towards my younger son (who was about 3 or 4 at the time) and used to chase Joey and bite his legs.

teri