Kamloops Catz 4: No Oranges Here

Barley (KN)

With the oodles of orange cats from Kamloops, the ones who aren’t orange stand out a bit more than most tabbies usually do!  

She may not look it, but Matcha is the bravest! (KN)

Genetics, of course, with cats, are a little difficult to discern. A queen cat may accept the advances of a number of males, and have a litter of kittens that look quite different from each other. We don’t know if this is the case with the tabbies who arrived with all the orange ones, or whether there was a tabby mama responsible for producing them.

Juniper  (LBF)

Like their orange siblings, they are liable to move around together – where you find one, it’s likely that the others are not far away. Barley is the most easily distinguished – she is a pretty grey tabby, and if you look at her head you’ll sees he has a little cows-lick of hair sticking up – not quite enough to call a Mohawk!   

Shy Violet (KN)

Juniper is the darkest tabby, and the largest of them (well, almost); Matcha is the most likely to be venturing further afield, occasionally followed by her smaller buddy Violet, though Violet and Barley really prefer to cosy up out of the way of people.  

Thorne  (KN)

When small Daffodil (featured in last week's blog) came to live at the Sanctuary, she came with one more member of the colony – the biggest one! Big Thorne is like Persimmon in majesty – but there’s even more of him. He has a wonderful thick multicoloured coat; his face shows clear tabby patterns, though this coat is so abundant that it’s hard to make out just exactly what the markings are. His mane can be quite lion-like. Unfortunately, like most of the Kamloops cats, he doesn’t welcome human touch – he will tolerate it briefly, but not enough to allow anyone to groom him – so he has to have the mats trimmed out, and he may probably be another customer for a summer haircut.

Thorne (KN)

Unlike Daffodil, who has found her own "family", Thorne had no hesitation in claiming his Kamloops buddies, and now that they've moved to their summer home in Pen 5, Thorne maintains a regal presence there,

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen & Karen Nicholson

Kamloops Catz 3: Blondes Have More Fun

Goldie  (KN)

There used to be a fallacy that most orange cats were male. We now know that that percentage is considerably less – usually cited as 80% - and I would venture to say that at the Sanctuary it’s even less than that.  The gene for orange coloration is linked to the X chromosome, and males only need one copy of the gene to be orange, while females need two. Having said that, it’s clear that in some colonies, the genetic odds for orange females are much higher, and that’s certainly the case with the Kamloops colony.  

Rapunzel & Buffy  (BC)

It may not be immediately obvious, through, because some of our orange females are so pale in colour that “orange” is not the word that leaps to mind.

Buffy  (LBF)

Buffy is the darkest of these – the same sort of colour as the late Pumpkin and Walker, who I tend to describe as “champagne”.  Goldie and Rapunzel are paler still.  These three little girls prefer to base themselves out of Pen 5; when the others migrate back to the TeaRoom for winter warmth, the blondes prefer to add their body warmth to the cosy Pen 5 cabin, sharing with Adam, May and Walker, as well as with some of their non-orange family.

Rapunzel  (KN)

Buffy and Goldie are both still very shy; they will allow themselves to be watched, and are sometimes interested in wand toy play, but they would prefer to be left alone. You can sometimes pat Buffy, if you can do so without letting her see the hand; once the petting has started, she will allow herself to enjoy it for a bit, and then scoot away. Goldie is a don’t-touch-me girl. She and Rapunzel look very similar, but one step towards them will tell you which is which - Goldie backs away quickly but her buddy is a little braver. Rapunzel sports a white bib with her blond fur, and she is the only one of the three who will approach humans to solicit attention.  When she’s in the mood, she’s a total flirt – with weekend visitors as well as with volunteers.

Daffodil   (KN)

A fourth light orange cat called Daffodil is technically part of this group; she came from the original colony and was fostered in Kamloops, but it was decided that she might do better with access to her family. In fact, she has never merged back with them; she prefers to remain in the Newcomers area, and sometimes wanders over to the DoubleWide, but she never seemed to recognize the others at all, and has made her own “family” with her Newcomers buddies. That family has been hit by the passing of Pumpkin, who Daffodil loved – we’ll see who she might bond with when her mourning is over.

Daffodil  (KN)

Blog by Brigid Coult

Photos by Lisa Brill-Friesen, Brigid Coult, Karen Nicholson

Next week: Not orange!