Large domestic house cats that are loved worldwide

There are a number of large domestic cat breeds which make excellent pets - AND... there is a difference between a large cat breed and a fat cat! Cats are wonderful creatures and have become very popular as pets all around the world - especially in the United States.  In fact, most people who keep cats as their pets consider them a part of their family rather than just a pet!  Today, house cats are available in various sizes and many different breeds. Some people prefer small cats while others are drawn to the large-sized, domesticated versions. It is important to know the important characteristics of a particular breed of cat before making it a pet! Here are some of the most loved and adored, large, domesticated cat breeds that are highly popular among various cat lovers around the world.

The Ragamuffin: The Ragamuffin is one of most popular jumbo-sized domesticated cat breeds around the world. In this breed of cat the males weigh between 15 to 20 pounds while the females weigh between 10 to 15 pounds. Ragamuffins have become popular among cat lovers mainly due to their sweet and friendly nature apart from the beautiful rabbit-like fur. These cats take almost a year to mature completely but even a kitten of 4-5 months is quiet adorable.

The Maine Coon: The Maine Coon is originally from the state of Maine in USA. In fact it is the official state cat of Maine. It is another large domesticated cat breed popular among cat lovers as pets. The male Maine Coon can weigh between 13 to 18 pounds while the female can weigh between 8 and 12 pounds.

The Ocicat: The Ocicat is another large domesticated cat breed with great popularity as a pet. The breed looks a lot like a wild cat but has no 'wild' characteristics. Ocicats are highly energetic and lively cats and are popular for being one of the most active and agile cat breeds around the world.  The average weight of an Ocicat is about 12 pounds.

The Turkish Van: The Turkish Van is a large domestic cat breed with semi-long hair and big and slim body. A typical Turkish Van is a reasonably long cat with its back legs longer and stronger compared to its front legs. This cat has a haired and water-resistant coat which is reasonably thick in winter and soft like the fur of rabbit. During the summer months the cat sheds off most of its thick coat. The female Turkish Van weighs between 12 to 14 pounds while the male weighs between 14-16 pounds.

Pixie Bobs: Pixie Bobs is another wonderful domestic cat which is preferred as a pet. It has striking similarities with the North American Bobcat but has also its own unique characteristics. The male Pixie Bobs weighs about 18 pounds while the female weighs about 14 pounds. This cat has a strong and stocky body and is the only cat recognized by The International Cat Association (TICA). This cat has six to seven toes on each of its foot.

These are the most popular domestic cat breeds for cat lovers. It is vital that we gain crucial knowledge about a particular cat breed before we decide on taking it as a pet. This will make things a lot easier both for us and our cat and help us care for our pet in a loving and efficient manner.

After 5 years on the run, Willow (the mystery cat) finally cashes in her chip

A now-famous calico cat named Willow, who disappeared from a home near the Rocky Mountains five years ago, was found on Wednesday on a Manhattan street and will soon be returned to her family, where two of the three children and one of the two dogs may remember her.  How she got to New York, more than 1,800 miles away, and the kind of life she lived in the city are mysteries.  But thanks to a microchip that was implanted when she was a kitten, Willow will be reunited in Boulder, Colo., with her owners, the Squireses, who had long ago given up hope.

“There are tons of coyotes around here, and owls,” Jamie Squires said. “We put out the ‘lost cat’ posters and the Craigslist thing, but we actually thought she’d been eaten by coyotes.”

Ms. Squires said she and her husband, Chris, were shocked when they received a call about Willow on Wednesday from Animal Care and Control, which runs New York City’s animal rescue and shelter system. Ms. Squires said that when they saw a picture of the cat, they knew it was Willow.  Willow was found on East 20th Street by a man who took her to a shelter, and Julie Bank, executive director of Animal Care, said the microchip led to the Squires family.

“All our pets are microchipped,” Ms. Squires said. “If I could microchip my kids, I would.”


Ah, but is this tale entirely true? The first story is from the New York Times. But several days later, the New York Post had this to say:  The truth behind Willow the cat’s five-year journey from Colorado to Manhattan may not be quite the furry adventure tale it’s been cracked up to be.  She didn’t walk or hitchhike the 1,800 miles from her Boulder home to the Big Apple, it seems, but may instead have simply been scooped up by a New Yorker on a ski vacation and flown back to his or her home in Brooklyn.

“While in Brooklyn, she was loved and very spoiled ... She’s had quite an adventure, but there’s no great mystery behind her travels,” an anonymous person who once cat-sat the calico told the Web site Gothamist.  According to this account, which city officials are not sure they believe, a Colorado vet turned up no record of her original owners and didn’t scan for her implanted microchip. But when the cat was scanned at the city’s Animal Care and Control shelter, her Colorado owners turned up in the database.  After years with the cat, the new owner chose to turn the pet in to the shelter because he or she traveled a great deal and was “unable to give her all the time and attention she deserves,” the writer said.

At any rate, there was a 'miracle' here - i.e. the miracle of modern science!

Boy saves kitten from death. Community saves boy from heartbreak.

For the Dayton family (in Moose Jaw - Saskatchewan, Canada), it was devastating when their cat, Dexter, ran away. That's because their teenage son (Logan) had rescued the cat years before, when it was a tiny, injured kitten.  The father, Marc Dayton, says, “He just worked out so good and became such a good member of the family.” Marc said Logan especially developed a bond with the cat, named Dexter. He said his son felt a certain protectoral pride in have rescued the animal from likely frigid winter death. But it was Logan who left him outside one day, only to discover that his beloved pet was lost.

Of course, they plastered the area with posters about Dexter, and that act appears to have brought the entire town together. Even the local paper agreed to run very cheap ads asking for readers to be on the lookout for Dexter. Marc claims that the newspaper ads really got the phone ringing. He said a lot of concerned citizens were expressing sympathy, calling to report sightings of cats matching the description and, in some cases, even offering new kittens if all else failed. But in the end, Dexter turned up when one of the townsfolk found him and called.  According to Marc, Dexter is happily back with the family and will be staying indoors for the foreseeable future. Marc, a father of two teenage boys (Logan and 13-year-old Tyrol) said he feels a great deal of gratitude for the whole community that came together to help reunite his family.

“Thank you all,” he said, adding he went around town replacing the “Missing Cat” posters with ones expressing appreciation to all who cared. Since nobody would accept the $60 reward, Marc donated $60 worth of cat food to Moose Jaw Humane Society.

Woman travels 1,600 miles to rescue a cat that she doesn't want. Just in time for Caturday!

A devoted animal lover told yesterday how she travelled 1,600 miles to rescue a stray cat in France - after it became trapped on a roof.  Wendy Wilson, 65, adopted tortoiseshell tabby cat Sandy while living for 16 weeks a year at her holiday home in Cruzy, Herault, in the South of France.  But the mischievous moggy sparked a cross-channel rescue after getting stuck on a neighbour's garage roof without food or water for three weeks.

Hours after learning of Sandy's plight Wendy took a £150 Ryanair flight from Stansted Airport to Carcassonne to rescue the stricken cat.  The retired mum-of-two found Sandy crying out for help and almost starving to death after climbing up inside a neighbour's garage and onto the roof.  After the rescue, she booked Sandy onto a coach to drive her all the her back home to her home in Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Wendy, a retired building society worker, said: "My French neighbour told me Sandy had disappeared and when I made enquiries I found she was stuck on a roof.  The only way off the roof was back down through the garage or a 10 foot drop.  She was too nervous to wait by the garage door and lots of people had tried to coax her down. But they weren't particularly bothered about feeding her.  The poor old thing was stuck up there in the baking heat for three weeks without any real food or water. How she survived I just don't know.

I was so worried about it I decided to fly out to France. I just thought I have to go get her. I thought she was going to die.  You can't call the French firefighters like you do in England because they wouldn't appreciate going out to rescue a cat."

"When I got there I saw her on the roof and she ran over and cried out but there was no way to get to her.  I had to wait until the neighbours got back so I could get into their garage.  She was so thirsty and really hungry. She wouldn't have lasted much longer. It was definitely worth it and I couldn't abandon her to die."

Inexplicably, Wendy has now donated the cat to her neighbour Peggy Ward, 83.

Cat Ranching!

An UNREAL sanctuary for cats.

This guy has saved a lot of cats. Check out the little houses he built for them.

Craig Grant bought a tree farm far away from the city and turned it into a sanctuary for all the cats he has rescued. He lives there with the cats and provides lots of love, care and companionship. It's hard to imagine that once he was not a cat lover and did not want cats until he met his son's cat Pepper. He also got to experience what it is like raising a litter of kittens.

Over that time I learned that every cat had its own unique personality and it wasnt long before the kittens were swinging from my curtains. I didn't care. Something had changed, I didn't want to give them up. The condo life was not easy for the kitties, so Craig found a tree farm and settled down there for his fur babies. Over the next several months, he rescued more and more homeless and abandoned cats. The number of new residents kept going up, so Craig expanded the sanctuary to make more room for the animals.

The farm was named Caboodle Ranch and is now a permanent home for all the homeless, rescued cats. Each of them has a sad story of their past, but now they are living in heaven. Cats should be able to roam free, and at Caboodle Ranch, tha'¹s what they do. Craig has built many beautiful cat houses and decorated the place with vibrant colors and tons of liveliness. All the cats are spayed and neutered. Don't forget to visit Caboodle Ranch (non profit rescue center) at their website and check them out on Facebook.

The Veterinarian (groaner alert)‏

'The Veterinarian'

One Sunday, in counting the money in the weekly offering, the Pastor of a small church found a pink envelope containing $1,000. It happened again the next week! The following Sunday, he watched as the offering was collected and saw an elderly woman put the distinctive pink envelope on the plate. This went on for weeks until the pastor, overcome by curiosity, approached her.

"Ma'am, I couldn't help but notice that you put $1,000 a week in the collection plate," he stated. "Why yes," she replied, "every week my son sends me money and I give some of it to the church."

The pastor replied, "That's wonderful. But $1000 is a lot, are you sure you can afford this? How much does he send you?"

The elderly woman answered, "$10,000 a week."

The pastor was amazed. "Your son is very successful; what does he do for a living?"

"He is a veterinarian," she answered.

"That's an honorable profession, but I had no idea they made that much money," the pastor said. "Where does he practice?" The woman answered proudly, "In Nevada... He has two cat houses, one in Las Vegas , and one in Reno"

At least SOMETHING good comes out of Somalia

Scar and Grumpy, lions rescued from Somali chaos

Their names are 'Scar' and 'Grumpy', and they are two irresistible lion cubs rescued from a trafficker at Mogadishu port - having become the mascots of the Somali capital's airport where they have found a temporary home.  The four-month-old lions now live in an enclosure at the end of Mogadishu international airport's tarmac and have become a rare cheerful attraction in the war-ravaged city.

They were discovered by Somali government soldiers in December, their back legs tied together and generally in bad shape, on a merchant ship which was about to smuggle them to an Arab country to be sold.  The port authority rescued the two cats and handed them over to a foreign logistics company based within the airport compound, one of the few relatively secure areas in Mogadishu and home to the African Union force's main base.

The sparkling Indian Ocean, the wreckage of a military cargo plane and barb wire horizon provide an unusual landscape for the king of animals but Scar and Grumpy spend their days like most lion cubs do: sleeping, playing and eating.  Fortunately, they have found (in a South African, already in charge of a group of sniffer dogs on the airport compound) a natural animal-loving handler.

"Unfortunately, it's not the first time that we hear about lions. Some of the foreigners working here have been offered lions to buy," the man said, speaking to an AFP reporter on condition of anonymity.  At only four months, Scar and Grumpy look like big cuddly cats but are already too powerful for humans to play with and have to be fed an entire goat every three days.  "I would rather see them running around in a big game reserve where they could hunt than living in a zoo for 25 years," the handler said.

Man attains rank of "Cat Commander" having raised and trained an army of 60 cats to keep rats out of his grainery.

A man has trained 60 cats to guard a grain depot from rats, the Dalian-based Peninsula Morning Post reported on Monday.  Yin Chunzhu, an employee at a storage and transportation company in Dalian, Northeast China’s Liaoning province has been dubbed “Cat commander” for his army of feline guards.

The barn, stocked with organic crops has been harassed by rampant rats for many years, according to staffers. Due to the possible contamination from rat poison, Yin has been training the cats since mid-October to protect against rodents.  The cats have been trained with different skills such as detecting, lurking and patrolling for rats.

“It is obvious that our grain damage has lessened in the recent months”, said a staff member at the company. And the expense of raising the cats is only half the cost of losing the grain, she added.

America's obesity epidemic extends to pets: Shelter now offering cat adoption prices per pound

FAT CATS: Bellingham animal shelter offers chubs at $1 per pound

Frosty, a 5-year-old domestic long-haired cat, has been at the Whatcom Humane Society’s Williamson Way shelter since late November. He’s been featured twice on the radio as “Pet of the Week,” but has yet to be adopted.

The Whatcom Humane Society believes one of the reasons Frosty may not be able to find a “forever home” is his weight — at 13.2 pounds, Frosty’s a bit of a fatty.  To help Frosty and other plus-size cats find homes, the Humane Society is having a “Flab-ulous Feline Adoption Special” through Wednesday. The adoption fee for cats weighing more than 12 pounds will equal the weight of the cat — so a cat like Frosty would cost only $13.20. The regular adoption fee for cats and kittens is $115.

“It’s heartbreaking to see these big, beautiful cats get passed over day after day, having to compete for homes and kennel space with younger, skinnier cats,” Executive Director Laura Clark said. “Our staff and volunteers do what we can to provide each cat with daily exercise and TLC, but our resources are limited.”

Clark said the Humane Society’s largest cat is Patches, an 18-month-old short-haired Siamese mix, who weighs in at a whopping 22 pounds. The shelter renamed him from the tab his previous owners had given him: Fatty.

After finding her foster mom Patience, Stella decided to take it a step further. She adopted Patience's whole family. And, just in time for Caturday!

Some people hold the opinion that cats are more independent than dogs, that they, in the words of a popular quotation, "will take a message and get back to you." Not so with my Stella.

The smallest of five in her litter, Stella was born to a calico mom whose muted colors were like those in a Monet watercolor garden. Two of the male kittens took on her apricot shades, one other male and a female duplicated her sandy charcoal hues, and Stella reprised the limpid blue of the garden. Her button nose was as pink as a newborn baby mouse.

I had brought the mom and her brood home from the animal shelter to foster just after the kittens' eyes had opened. I named the mother Patience because she had set about her maternal duties with tender regard and longsuffering. Five hungry kittens can seem like a squirmy mass of furry balls roiling about in a tumbler as they scramble for just the right position for both nourishment and comfort.

Patience would lie on her side contentedly opening and closing her forepaws while 10 tiny feet kneaded her belly to obtain optimum milk flow. She kept her poise no matter what sounds emanated from her kids – slurping or squealing. After mealtime, Patience washed each face and bottom to ensure nature's protocols ran smoothly. Observing this most elemental ritual gave me moments filled with awe and wonder. Tending the little family was both privilege and honor. I committed myself to work very hard in finding these beautiful felines great adoptive homes.

When the babies began to grow stronger and to explore their surroundings, a new dimension of wonderment opened to all of us. Legs began to stagger, then to walk, then to run. PLAY came into being, and the rough and tumble of competition.

I noticed at this time something unique about Stella. She made choices. Actually, it boiled down to one choice: me. Whenever I entered the room to clean the litter box or refresh food and water, Stella would ignore her wrestling siblings and come over to me. In my kneeling position on the floor, it was easy for her to climb the Mt. Everest of my lap and plop herself down with a purr that sounded like an outboard motor. Her habit never varied. It didn't take long before I realized Stella had adopted me!

She allowed her natural mom to perform basic functions, but as far as bonding or any show of affection, her preference was clear. I knew she had my number.

Needless to say, Stella joined our family after her mom and siblings found their own respective homes. Today, she remains petite and opinionated with an expressive voice that could almost be said to imitate vocabulary.  Her favorite game involves helping me make the bed. Her coat is still blue and white; her nose, pink, and she still thinks I am her real mommy.

— Rae Zimmerling, Gearhart

'Extinct' wild cat spotted in Borneo, is more than welcome to join the Caturday festivities

One of the world's rarest wild cats, an elusive creature once thought to be extinct, has been spotted in camera traps in Malaysian Borneo for the first time since 2003, researchers say.

The Bornean Bay Cat, a long-tailed reddish or grey feline the size of a large domesticated cat, was sighted in the northern highlands of Malaysia's Sarawak state, the forest department said today.  Three photographs showing two or three individuals were captured, bringing new hope for the future of the endangered animal about which very little is known, said research officer Wilhelmina Cluny.

"This species is very secretive... it was classified as extinct until a photograph of it was taken in 2003," she said.  "I do feel encouraged, this photograph was taken in a logged forest... when we saw this it made us wonder whether this kind of habitat can sustain wildlife, even for rare and important species like the bay cat.  We had been looking for any mammals and this bay cat came up, it's quite exciting that we got the photograph."

There has been very little research into the bay cat, and there is no indication as to whether its numbers are rising or falling.  The images were captured in 2009 and 2010 but not released until the study was completed.  The animals spotted were the grey variety, which are even more rare than the reddish type.  The camera trap was positioned next to the Pulong Tai national park in northern Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states that make up part of Borneo.  The vast island is shared with Indonesia and the small sultanate of Brunei.

Other than these handful of images, most other information on the species consists of "historical records, morphological descriptions and anecdotes", according to the Sarawak Forest Department.  Rampant logging in timber-rich Sarawak has removed much of the state's forest cover, threatening the survival of animal and plant species, as well as indigenous tribes whose way of life is increasingly in peril.

If you've ever wanted to know what's in Purina Kitten Chow, here you go, just in time for Caturday.

Biotin:  Vitamin B7. Necessary to keep Garfield’s coat sleek and full, biotin is also found in expensive hair conditioners for humans.

Brewers Rice:  Fragmented rice kernels, with the bran removed, used as supplemental starch in beer-making. While cats are obligate carnivores (i.e., they don’t need any plant-based food), kittens can safely digest a dry food diet of up to 35 percent carbs.

Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex:  Provides a water-soluble variant of vitamin K, necessary for blood clotting. The FDA says you can use up to 1,000 times the recommended daily allowance in most animal feed without adverse effects. On the other hand, the FDA banned it for use in human vitamin supplements in 1963.

Animal Fat Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols:  This is your mouser’s only source of arachidonic acid, a fatty acid that’s essential for healthy skin, as well as proper wound healing and blood clotting.

Fish Meal:  Roly-poly fish heads (and tails and bodies and guts) are ground up to form a protein-rich powder. The FDA reminds us that “animals do not share in people’s aesthetic concerns about the source and composition of their food.” Eat them up, yum.

Chicken By-Product Meal:  Think leftovers like the heart, liver, and kidneys. Depending on the source, this can also include necks, feet, intestines, undeveloped eggs, and maybe even a few feathers.

Copper Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate:  All kittens need copper to grow connective tissue, baby toms need zinc to develop mature testicles, and almost every mammal needs iron to avoid anemia. Cats don’t easily absorb the oxide form of copper, so pet foods typically use the sulfate form.

Taurine:  Cats do not have the genetic wherewithal to manufacture certain amino acids. Without taurine in their diet, they can go blind from retinal degeneration or die from heart failure.

Soy Flour:  Protein is protein, and this stuff provides more amino acids than the equivalent amount of beef. But your cat’s ancestors didn’t hunt soya in the wild, so their bodies aren’t engineered to process the legume’s isoflavones, which may be contributing to the sharp increase in feline hyperthyroidism over the past 30 years.

As a fundraising stunt, man to live with lions for 30 days, the last 29 of which likely be in their gigantic litter box

SPRING HILL, Fla. - A Florida man says he's going to spend the next month living in a fenced enclosure with two African lions. James Jablon of Spring Hill hopes the stunt will raise money for his wildlife center, Wildlife Rehabilitation of Hernando.

Jablon entered the lions' den Saturday (just like in the Bible). He says he's going to sleep on hay near the lions named Lea and Ed and eat when they eat. Presumably, they won't be eating the same thing. He also says he's also going to build a place to sleep and hide in the trees in the enclosure, in case the lions fight with each other. His wacky adventure is being streamed live online through January 31.

About 100 animals live at the center about 40 miles north of Tampa. It was started for native wildlife needing medical treatment, but Jablon says he's now being asked to provide homes for exotic pets.

Authorities kill cougar stalking young bachelor. Man, the dating scene has gotten tough!

Ray County mountain lion a Missouri rarity

By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH

The Kansas City Star

The mountain lion killed in Ray County was examined by biologist Jeff Beringer (left).

The body, a .22-caliber slug lodged in the brain, was sprawled on the autopsy table waiting for the scalpel.

Weight: 115.2 pounds.
Length: 79 inches.
Age: Perhaps three years, maybe younger, according to the sharp white teeth and markings on the inside of the legs.

The anatomical evidence that most interested the scientists: The dead mountain lion (nicknamed the Ray County Cat) was male.  And with that, Missouri’s Mountain Lion Response team sighed with relief.  Had it been a wild female, it would have signaled the state could have a breeding population of the big cats. Of the dozen confirmed sightings since 1994, only one — the team’s first investigation — was a female. In that case, some members thought it was someone’s pet.  So far, it’s just the wanderers, said Jeff Beringer, Department of Conservation furbearer resource biologist, who was part of the autopsy team. That is, the young males looking for love in all the wrong places.

The team saw no signs the healthy feline had been in captivity, such as tattoos or electronic identification tags. Nor did the paws show evidence of life in a hard-floored enclosure. Also, its dewclaws, often surgically removed in captive animals, were intact.  Hair samples taken for DNA testing should show the lion’s origins.
In November, a confirmed sighting  (a photograph and some tracks) occurred in Platte County. The team took lion hair from that site. They’ll check for a match with this one.  The Richmond rancher who shot it Sunday night believes it might not be the only one prowling north of the river. Losing calves, Bob Littleton set out game cameras that were triggered on two different cold October nights.  “One was big, and the other was smaller,” Littleton said. “If this was the smaller one, I sure wouldn’t want to meet the bigger one.”

The team has investigated more than 1,500 sightings in the state.

“I know that my e-mail will be full with new reports now that this one was shot,” Beringer said. “If we have solid evidence, we go out and investigate. But most of the time there’s no proof.”  One reason that Beringer thinks no cubs are out there in the Missouri hardwoods is the lack of road kills. In Missouri, only two lions met their doom that way: one in 2002 at Interstate 35 and Parvin Road, the other the next year in Callaway County.  The cats are common in Western states, with a few in South Dakota, western Texas and Florida. Northwest Nebraska is the area nearest Missouri with an established mountain lion population. Individuals also show up in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Illinois.  “A neat looking animal, but every mountain lion up close is pretty amazing,” Beringer said.  Every March, he traps and collars the creatures on Ted Turner’s New Mexico ranch, giving field lessons to other biologists.

Out there they’re often called pumas. Some people say cougars. Or panther, painter or catamount. Their scientific name is Puma concolor.  Science shows that most cougars attack protecting their young. Or in the hunt for food.  “These wanderers are more afraid of people than we are of them. … And they’re afraid of dogs. A dog can tree ’em.”  This specimen was up in the branches of a tree on Littleton’s 350 acres just east of Richmond.

The cat’s misfortune stemmed from the taste for veal he had developed. A few months ago, Littleton found one calf mauled; another completely disappeared. Then a cow showed claw marks on its hindquarters. Two raccoon hunters noticed Littleton’s cattle were riled up and skittish. Looking up in a tree, they saw why. “They called me on their cell phone, and I went out there. They were afraid if they shot him, they’d get in trouble,” he said.  Missouri has laws against killing a mountain lion for sport, but not for protecting oneself, family or property. Such shootings are supposed to be reported immediately, with the intact carcass, including the pelt, turned over to state officials within 24 hours.

So his friends handed him their rifle. He aimed well.  Only after the big cat fell did the rancher begin to shake, thinking about the threat.  He called the conservation people and then a television station. Looking into the camera, his voice broke.  Later he said why. He knew how many times his “grandbabies” played in that field. Alone and without fear.  "This has changed my life. I’ll never let them do that again unless I’m there with my gun.”