“Blue” (but not really) and “ginger”

cat shows , there are no gray cats, only blue ones. (As far as that goes, no human or cat is naturally “red,” yet when we refer to a cat or...

Tomcat “on hold”

Tomcats have a reputation for being promiscuous, but in fact an adult tom, unneutered, never has sex on his mind (unlike male humans). His e...

Tortoiseshell

True tortoiseshell (the shell of an actual turtle, that is) is black with attractive highlights of orange or cream. It has been used for cen...

Tipping

When a cat has a “tipped” coat, the individual hairs are not the same color from root to tip. Rather, the tips are of a contrasting color co...

Pasteur’s admiration

Science and human health both took a great leap forward thanks to French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), who made world-changing discover...

The unicolor

Some cats are consistently the same color all over—that is, each hair is the same color from tip to root, and hairs all over the body are th...

Vasectomy

puberty . The neutered tom is castrated, whereas a vasectomy only makes the tom sterile. A neutered tom won’t usually roam, fight or spray ur...