A purely white cat, of any breed, has a 22% chance of being deaf. If they have one blue eye the odds go up to 40% and if both eyes are blue it’s 65-85% likely they’re deaf.
Meowing is not a natural part of cat communication. It was something developed just to communicate with humans. They learned a way to get our attention – and it certainly works.
Kittens are born without any teeth. 26 teeth will begin to grow in at around 2-6 weeks, but will start to fall out at 11 weeks. They mostly swallow them, but you find some on the floor too. By 4-6 months of age the adult teeth start growing in and there will be will be 30 teeth in total.
Cats can be allergic to us – with more cats being kept indoors, kitty asthma is on the rise. Allergens can include smoke, dust and human dandruff. Symptoms, as you probably would guess, include lots of sneezing.
Tortoiseshell colored cats are (almost) always female. A rare male was reported in Britain with the odds being 1 in 400,000 of this happening.
A recent survey by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) showed that 26% of households owned cats in 2020. The number of individual pet cats is estimated to be as high as 61.9 million. This is up from 25% of households in 2016 with 58.4 million pet cats estimated.
Cats can see in color, but the only colors they are believed to see are blue and green. Keep that in mind when picking out cat toys. Now you know why these are the Pawsitive Potential logo colors!
Not all cats will react to catnip. It’s an inherited trait and approximately half of cats respond to it. If both parents are sensitive to it, then odds are more than 75% likely their kittens will be sensitive too. It doesn’t begin at birth and takes about three to six months to start seeing a reaction. Lions and other big cats can respond to it too!
Cats have a very interesting way of drinking water. They don’t scoop it up with their tongues like dogs do, but rather just touch their tongues to the surface. They move their tongues up and down so quickly that inertia is created and the water moves into their mouths. Lions and other large cats do the same thing.
Cats have about 24 whiskers. 12 on each side. They are highly sensitive and should never be cut.
One litter of kittens can have multiple fathers – as many as five or more! That’s why one litter can have such a variety of colors, patterns and personalities.
Why do cats sometimes run out of the litter box after using it? There are different theories, but the Chewy.com blog pages have quoted my opinion on this subject that you can read here.
In the United Kingdom and Australia, black cats symbolize GOOD luck.
The lifespan of a cat living outdoors is about 3-5 years. For cats living indoors only, they can be expected to live 16 years or more.
An adult cat will typically sleep about 16 hours per day. Kittens sleep closer to 20 hours per day.
The rough tongue of cats allows them to properly groom themselves and also clean more meat off the bones of prey after hunting.
