I always like these short videos showing a charming Maine Coon kitten growing up. This breed grows up slowly; still developing at 4-years-of-age they say. And this particular individual is a lovely ginger tabby with a nice little dark smudge on the left side of his nose which I think adds to his attractiveness.
He looks very alert and he is going to be a wonderful companion. Anecdotally, it is said that ginger tabbies of any breed or non-purebred have nice characters. It begs the question as to whether the coat colour affects the character or whether both the character of a cat and their coat type and colour are connected. As I recall it can happen that way if the genes that govern both these aspect of a cat are on the same chromosome.
I say “anecdotally” by which I mean cat owners say that their cat is more friendly when their cat is a ginger tabby. That’s the kind of evidence I’m talking about but as it happens there is a study called Coat Colour, Personality Traits and the Cat-Owner Relationship Scale: A Study with Cat Owners in Mexico. It was published online in 2022, April 15 and therefore is quite recent.
It’s interesting because I immediately noticed that the researchers came to the conclusion that “orange cats had the highest scores for being trainable, friendly and calm”. What did I say? It seems that my memory is serving me well. But this study is a survey based on a questionnaire and the result is still anecdotal evidence formalised in a scientific report. But it has value.
They also said that “gray cats had the highest score for being shy, aloof and intolerant”. The best-known purebred, pedigree grey cat is the Russian Blue; a pretty popular cat breed.
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Obviously, if a cat is friendly and calm compared to aloof and intolerant the cat caregiver is going to interact more with the former than the latter. And that’s what happened in this study.
And they also said that, “higher emotional closeness was related with an active, bold and friendly personality, and higher perceived cost was related with lower scores of boldness.”
Also, the following findings were reported in terms of a connection between coat type and personality:
- Tabbies: bold and active
- Tricolour: stubborn
- Bicolour: tolerant
The above three coat types are patterns. The researchers said that there was “no significant differences in personality traits when comparing the groups based on coat colour”.
What they’re saying is that it is the pattern which appears to be linked to personality rather than the colour. I’ve never heard that before.
Most of the participants were women which is common in these sorts of studies. That’s because often single women live alone live with a domestic cat. That is the classic paradigms for cat ownership: independent woman with independent cat!
Only 211 cats were involved in the study and therefore it’s quite a small one which should be taken into account.
Also, despite the negative myths (and they are entirely mythical) surrounding black cats, the study concluded that the predominant trait according to their owners is friendliness. This doesn’t surprise me because black domestic cats are just like any other domestic cat of any colour and almost all domestic cats are friendly. But it goes further apparently.
In fact, I can add to that study finding by quoting from a New York Times bestseller, Temple Grandin in her book Animals Make Us Human.
She recommends that you adopt a black cat from a shelter because, “Black cats especially are friendlier than other cats, are better able to deal with crowding and urban life, and have greater aggregative tendencies which means they are more inclined to live in groups of cats.”
She praises them to the rooftops and says that you should adopt a black shelter cat. Sarah Hartnell, who used to work at a shelter and probably still does and who has a deep knowledge of cats, describes them as “laid-back blacks”.
Link to study: https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fani12081030
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Thanks for sharing Tango!
Pleasure. Nice work.
Please warn us about the loud music next time!
Yes, they always pick the wrong music – for me anyway, and maybe you too.