When Does An Ugly Cat Become Attractive?

The abc News journalist, Stephanie Tuder wrote an article entitled: Meet Zeb, the Adorable Ugly One-eyed, Four-toothed Senior Cat.

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Zeb – the so called “ugly” yet attractive 12 year-old rescue cat. Photo by Beth Flor

In the title she hints that ugly can also be adorable and it can. We know it, but why?

Ugly-pretty does happen. Elisa wrote a couple of articles about Zeb which I reckon Stephanie picked up on the internet.

This is my answer to the question in the title to this article (do you have one?). When a cat’s, so called, ugliness is due to life experience it can no longer be described as ugliness but “character”.

We all understand how tough life can be. We can relate to people and animals who have had tough lives. We warm to them. When the face of a person or animal expresses life’s knocks and experiences it touches us emotionally, we connect and ugliness becomes an attraction.

One of my pet hates is plastic surgery for women; sad women who want to scrape away all their character thereby demonstrating to the world that they do not value experience and character as much as a veneer-like appearance of transparently, fake youth.

Stephanie refers to Zeb’s “unconventional cute looks”. If he is cute it is not “pretty-cute” but “character-cute”.

Zeb has been through the mill and we admire that. He has used up some of his nine lives. He contracted FIV, lost an eye and almost all of his teeth. He avoided euthanasia at a rescue center and was saved by City of Elderly Love, another rescue organization in Philadelphia.

I think Zeb has started the final episode of his life and it is going to be good, very good. At 12 years-of-age he has found an excellent retirement home for geriatric cats, the loving home of Beth Flor in Spring City, Pennsylvania. There are three dogs there, however, and another cat. Let’s hope he settles in okay (it seems he has).

Flor is a shelter volunteer and likes senior companion animals as demonstrated by the fact that she feel in love with a senior dog. Flor says that Zeb is popular because he is an underdog. There may be something in that too. I think what she means is that kind-hearted people warm to the more vulnerable in society.

Flor says that her two daughters love Zeb. He has plenty of love coming his way in the autumn of his life and he has earned it.

Note: genuine cat lovers will never find a cat ugly. They are all equal and in their own way, beautiful but sometimes, perhaps ugly cat can mean exactly that and it is often due to failed breeding.