Tortie in a beanie with a blaze

This is a really good cat picture. It is unusual to this sort of quality in a photo taken by a non-professional photographer. The cameras help nowadays and I mean smartphones. The optics are amazing and the chips are awesome. You don’t need a 35mm sensor SLR anymore as smartphones have 50-million-pixel chips and Leica optics.

And don’t be concerned about the fact that the photographer has put a beanie on her head because she likes it. He says that Schori¹ is “the smallest and most anxious cat in her litter”. She likes to be wrapped up and covered to feel more secure and she purrs whenever her beanie hat is put on her. So, there you go: it’s an example of dressing up a cat when it is beneficial to the cat. Often it isn’t because it is normally about pleasing people and getting a nice photo for social media.

They chose the colour well too! The reference to a “blaze” is the straight line down the middle of the nose. You often see this with tortoiseshell cats. It’s just part of how the genetics of this cat dictates the migration of pigmentation during the development of the embryo.

She has a very calm face and a slightly human face. The beanie suits her tremendously well and is probably partly why she has this human appearance. The other reason is the calmness in her expression and the direct stare into the camera lens. It seems that she does not mind being photographed unlike my cat who runs a mile as soon as he hears me pick up the camera.

You know that nearly all tortoiseshell cats are females, and this lady has a timid character. The experts tend to divide up domestic cats in the two personality types: confident and timid. It’s quite a useful way to categorise feline personality because it helps in caretaking. The timid cat needs a place to hide which is exactly why Schori like to be wrapped up and covered. Even the beanie hat might make her feel more secure.

Even confident cats like to crawl under bedclothes or into a clothes drawer to feel particularly snug when sleeping. Every home should have some quiet, secure places for their cat to retreat to when needed.

I will add a few words about the tortoiseshell cat although I do have a page on the topic and a lot more – click here please. Dr. Desmond Morris (Cat World) makes a nice observation about the tortoiseshell coat pattern. He says that it appears to be black, red and cream but on closer scrutiny “it becomes clear that the coat is, in reality, black plus orange tabby”. He adds that the “lighter, orange tabby areas, being two-toned, create the overall impression of a three-coloured cat.”

We know that the coat type of sex-linked. The same, of course, goes for the calico cat which is a tortoiseshell-and-white coated cat.

P.S. My research indicates that the name Schori is more commonly found in Switzerland than any other country/territory. I wonder if her human guardians are Swiss. See the post in Reddit.com.