CATS: FREAK BREEDS

As you've seen, I sometimes like to reprint Funny Cat photos that particularly strike me. But there are also snaps which also strike me that I don't put up on this blog because I just don't like them. The majority of these are pictures of what I call freak breeds such as the hairless Sphynx..

These poor creatures are hideous and about as appealing to me as a human being without skin. I'm sure that in character they are typical cats, affectionate and loveable, but they are freaks. They are deliberately created by humans out of some perverse aesthetic need. It does the cats no good at all as they have to be house cats. They couldn't survive outside.

Then there are the cats with stumpy legs like a dachsund. This cat is just deformed. It's unable to jump properly like a normal cat and like its own instinct tells it to. Again, it will have to spend all its life indoors, or at best in a high walled garden.

It's one thing to encourage certain traits that don't distort cats significantly from the norm, such as a particular type of fur, though I'm not keen on the long thick coats. Sure there are exceptions  -the Maine Coon is a good example of a healthy breed adapted to a harsher environment, or the attractive British Blue- but it just makes me sick when they are bred for a freakish non-survival trait such as the two above and those with ear folds whatever they are called.

But then I should declare my bias -I don't like breeders in general. Yeah, sure there are decent one who care about the health of their animals, but most I suspect are just in it for the money and if that means freak breeds, so what.

I may have mentioned this before but once at Vets4Pets, a woman who bred pugs asked me if we had any cats as they lived on a farm and needed them to keep the mice and rats down. And, oh yes, because they were near a main road, cats were always getting knocked down.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

That is a very cynical saying, albeit it has a degree of truth in it, but sometimes it's wrong. Today I received an embarrassingly large Christmas present from an elderly couple I helped with their middled-aged still mostly feral cat that they took in a few years ago. Basically all I did was get it in a cat carrier (admittedly not easy) and take them to the PDSA with it a couple of times. Today I was given a carrier bag containing a couple  of boxes of liqueur chocolates, a large tine of McVities biscuits, and if that wasn't enough, a full-size bottle of rum. Frankly, I'm embarrassed as I don't think I deserved it or maybe I'm not used to being appreciated. I've already given a box of chocolates to Ian F, the regular driver, who helped us out on one trip and will probably give the biscuits to the shop staff unless Susan wants them. The rum and other box of chocs I'll keep for myself. Hey, I'm embarrassed, I'm not daft.

Cat to Vets4Pets today for a checkup. It's Melba who's an elderly cat with diarrhea. I took her last week when Carol stupidly hadn't cleaned her up first and they were shocked by the state of her. Honour the vet still wasn't too happy today as she noticed that the shit had burned the fur of the bottom of Melba's hind feet, something Carol hadn't noticed. She'd also lost weight despite eating regularly and may have thyroid trouble (another one) so Honour took a blood sample and I'm bringing her back next Tuesday along with Hettie, who does have thyroid problems.

I waited nearly an hour to be seen because a local pug breeder had brought one of her dogs in needing emergency treatment. I'd met the breeder there before and don't like her. When she learned I was with Animal Krackers she asked for some cats to act as rat killers because they lived on a main road and her cats were always being knocked down. Like I said, I don't like her.

I don't like breeders on principle. Willow, my brother in law's Cavalier King Charles was rescued from a breeder as she'd been a puppy factory for six years and he now wanted new stock. While waiting to be seen today, I noticed the man opposite had a tiny Border terrier puppy nestled inside his jacket. He'd just bought it from a breeder for £350. It was supposed to be six weeks old when it was barely four. The dog he'd been shown as its mother wasn't. And two days ago it had started fitting and he rushed it here, believing it was going to die, but Honour had managed to save its life. I don't know everything that was wrong with the poor mite but he also told me it had ringworm. I hope it pulls through.

I don't believe all breeders are unscrupulous uncaring bastards but I have reason to believe that of most of them.