greer's pet blog

Fool of a Ghoul: 35,000 words written

this is a pinned post to motivate me. the goal is to write 1k a day, with the first draft finished by early May

an old lady enjoying the sun

the first night back from the vet, Pangur had terrible nightmares all night. I kept having to wake her up, because she was growling and jerking about in her sleep.

I feel bad that poor Belphie still has to be trapped in my office - the 2 weeks are up, so by all rights he should be free! unfortunately with Pangur being sick, his presence would be too stressful, so he has one more week of being stuck in that room.

to keep him entertained, I did let him have house access this morning while me and Pangur read on the catio. Grim chose to stay inside with the kitten (despite acting grumpy about it).

in this litter, you have 1 blue tabby, 1 blue tortoiseshell, and 2 tortoiseshells with white. I can help break down what that means.

so agouti (aka tabby) is a dominant gene. being self-coloured (aka solid) is recessive. this means that the parents of this litter both carried the recessive gene for solid, but at least one was a tabby.

now onto the tortoiseshells. red is an X-linked colour. male cats typically only have one X chromosome, so they can either get a black-X or a red-X (and be black or red).

female cats have two XX's, so they can inherit one of each. when this happens, the two colours both try to express at the same time, giving the cat a patchwork appearance!

as for the blue tabby and blue tortoiseshell, this happens when a black cat receives a double-copy of the dilution gene. so both parents of this litter had at least one copy to pass down.

and lastly, the white spotting. think of this as a can of white paint thrown at a cat, covering up everything beneath it. this is a co-dominant colour, and two copies of it can result in a pure white cat.

it's common to call a tortoiseshell with white spotting a calico, or a tri-colour, but there's no one calico gene. rather, it's a bunch of genes working together to create the effect!

(all these helpful diagrams came from King Size cattery)

I keep gently placing the blanket somewhere so I can creep off and do stuff, but Pangur immediately wakes and does a sick stumbling walk to wherever I am

happy, wriggly boy

it feels so disrespectful, but the only way I’ve been able to make pangur eat the last couple days is by smearing her muzzle with friskies gravy. she licks it off, and then goes “oh……so this is ‘food’…….how interesting. perhaps I shall have some more.”