Soon I will hit 20 years as cat owner. 19 with Goku (RIP), 10 with Aegir, 1 with Kiwi and Olav.
When I adopted Goku I had a different, shallow and predjudiced idea about pedigree cats. I though they were animals for snobbish people, the flawless animal, the star animals. Although I didn't think the same about people with pedigree cats I knew (my friend had a purebreed siamese).
As a cat lover, I still liked to look at pedigree cats, some had curious characteristics. Originally I liked the big long haired cats, Maine Coon. The most prominent and well known breeds were Persians, Siameses, Sphynx and Maine Coons.
Back then it was obvious that Goku wasn't a pure moggy. Still, she wasn't a pedigree cat. I was curious to know what half race she was, I found comforting knowing that in the world there are other cats like her, once she would have gone. I assumed she was half persian, because her mum was chubby and long haired, and because Persian cats have small ears.
But when, six years ago, I had to be the cat sitter of actual persians. I realized their ears were different from Goku's. Persian cats have thin, soft unfolded cartilage. Goku's ears were thick, firm and folded. After lots of researces I found were Goku came from. Not her mum, but her dad had pedigree blood. Goku wasn't half persian, she was half Scottish Fold (single)/British Shorthair.
Other than folded ears, Goku had a semi-cobby bodytipe, double coat and her profile had a reminescence of profile of British Shorthair, witha noticeable stop. Even in her personality there were lots of mannerism that are typical of SF, aswell as traits of moggies that, in pure pedigree cats, are removed throug selection.
Susie, the mother of all Scottish Fold, is also a Goku's ancestor.
Now, When I adopted Goku, I didn'even know what a Scottish fold was, that such cats existed. My aunt (the one that gave me Goku) though Goku was a weird looking cat with unusually tiny ears. I noticed her ears were small from the start, but I excepted they would have grown at normal size in months. When I discovered SF breed, most cats showed in pictures are triple folds, few doubles and very rare singles, and the breed itself didn't took my attention. And in all race is alwais the most extreme variant the required one, in SF, triples are the most valuable.
Recently, a cat (a pedigree scottish fold) became an internet star because of her heterochromia on a black fur. But on her, I noticed her ears.
https://www.instagram.com/milkyblvck/?hl=it
Identical to Goku's, straight and small (ideally, Scottish fold have looped ears, so folds with upright ears are out of standard, 'defective', yet their ears still differ from actual straight-eared cats).
All cats are born with folded ears. Then, in one/two months, ears unfold. While ears unfold, they take all possible shapes you can find in SF cats.
In cats with the fold gene, this doesn't happens, or it happens only partially. On Goku, the ear canal opened and the Henry's Pocked unfolded. The ear flaps remained folded.
Single folds may have their ears slightly looped down, or perfectly straight, yet small. There are cases where cats ears unfold completely despite the presence of the fold gene, and this is the reason you should avoid to mate cats with folded ears togheter, and you should be vary of scottish straight too, if you use them for mating, unless you didn't do a genetic test. Scottish Fold are mated with British Shorthair, American Shorthair and sometimes Exotics.
The fold gene is semi-dominant, that does means it is dominant and recessive at the same time. It's like the bloodtype A and B, when you carry both gene, you have both bloodtype.
Homozygous cats suffer from early and crippling arthritis, this is the reason that you should never breed folds with folds. Not long ago heterozygous Scottish fold were healthy, not different from regular cats.
Then, like in people, average lifespan extended in cats too. Cats live, on average 15 to 17 years (Goku lived more than 19 years). This has made arthritis appear on heterozygous cats. Goku started to have arthritis at the age of 11, though she never actually was crippled.
Now, it should be underlined that 90% of all cats, regardles genetic makeup and breed, develop arthritis when they are around the age of 12, so is hard to tell if older scottish fold have arthritis because of their genes, or just because they're old. People with SF I meet online told to have healthy cats, and the few sick cats that were mentioned were homozygous. This is all what I understand from all informations I see around.
Most people who have pedigree cats also have moggies. Many pedigree cats are 'comfort cats', not 'cats for snobs'. I'm following a forum about cat (well, one of many) where i meet two brothers who have 5 cats, one pedigree cat and four moggies. They claimed that their pedigree cat is a comfort cat after the death of their favourite cat.
I'm doing researches about Scottish Folds as I think in future (as far as possible, I hope Aegir will live more than 20 years, and Olav and Kiwi are great cats, especially Kiwi, so tame and intelligent) I will get one or two. I would get single folds, rather than triple folds. Goku was spayed, so her line ended, she's gone, I miss her. But Goku comes from Susie's lineage. A Scottish fold/British shorthair mix has surely something of Goku and even looks a bit like her.
Time to show my new kittens
I took them right after Goku's death. I don't think they substitiute Goku. I like to have cats around. However, the wound was still open, so it was hard to connect to them at the start. I always treated them well, but only lately I feel more connected. They're both male, black and with faint tabby mackerel pattern (Goku had faint tabby bloched pattern, Aegir, in her black parts has faint tabby spotted pattern)
Originally, I planned to get only one cat. But in one week the cats became two
He was, morphologically, the complete opposite of Goku. While Goku had round cheeks and close set ears even as kitten:
Kiwi seemed fully an oriental cat, with a triangular head and elongated legs. Also he was very large to be a three months old (and later the vet told me that that was truly his age, but he was a large cat). I took him from a shelter and when I brought him at home, I was disappointed to discover he was a feral cat. To make things worse, after 12 hours he jumped out from the balcony and escaped.
So the week later I took another cat, Olav:
https://i.ibb.co/2kSq6tg/Pancino.png
He comes from a litter of SEVEN, though three of his brothers were not biological. His biological siblings were all female and he was the only male. I liked this kitten at first sight. Even if he was so small (43 days old, but I took Goku when she was 45 days old, so) I decided to keep him. But he was different from Goku. He missed his mum and cried. I felt bad for him. Goku, although she was only 45 days old when she came at my home, was very indipendent. Also she didn't looked so well: fever coat, conjunctivitis, sign of hyperestesia, baldness (and he was clearly a long haired cat). Like Goku, his ears were folded, but unlike hers' now his er tips opened completely and he has normal looking ears. At this point, just the night later, Kiwi was captured by my mum, put in a pet carrier and in the morning brought in my bedroom. He and Olav got along immediatly.
Also, Kiwi started to purr and to slowly abandon his feral behaviour https://i.ibb.co/FHVgbCw/Kiwi.jpg
His real personality is beautiful. As kitten he is as calm as an adult cat, but he also love to play. and purrs a lot. He is also smart. Is funny when he gets interested in videos featuring mices and rats. As kitten, Goku loved violence in Dragon ball and all those videos from USA featuring car chases.
He isn't feral anymore. He is not easy going, but he doesn't fear people anymore.
Also, growing up he truly became large. He doesn't look oriental anymore, his face is getting chubbier and chubbier and his head hasn't fully grown yet. He is 7 months old now https://scontent.fmxp3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/126191264_1005369869961863_8353853080207331245_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=2&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=PYUn2d3tDjwAX-DfbMJ&_nc_ht=scontent.fmxp3-1.fna&oh=5416bcbfaf53620cd101aecdf7e4c15c&oe=5FDEF1D0
We found that Olav, the other cat had worms and other nasty disease and because of this he was very thin. However the diseases weren't so hard to treat. When he was healed, he started to look better and better. First putting fat and fur on: https://i.ibb.co/0ymbFjc/Olav-nipote.jpg
Looking less oriental, and, instead showing some nice cheecks at only three months. Not as large as Goku's, but they are there: https://scontent.fmxp3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/120375468_964163977415786_7869905261532877361_o.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=2&_nc_sid=0debeb&_nc_ohc=hB4C_W094t8AX8XmkyS&_nc_ht=scontent.fmxp3-1.fna&oh=5bb9869717ae85e2dd69998432f43e32&oe=5FDD09F4
And then the fur keeps growing and growing. On his tail, right now it is 7 cm long. https://scontent.fmxp3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/126163787_1005369776628539_8290555366645379634_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=2&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=nkfEwTt4r1AAX8P5J9J&_nc_ht=scontent.fmxp3-1.fna&oh=83c478ff1885b15936c5f8d160c3267b&oe=5FDD4852
Olav is 5 months old. He is more lively, he eats a lot, he likes children, he is as vocal as Goku (he also has a nice meow), he is cuddly and quite overbearing. Also in 5 months he has fallen 7 times from the terrace. None of my cats fell 7 times from the terrace in 5 months. However, he still showed symptoms oh hyperestesia. Not daily but every two/three weeks. Last month in particular it was very bad. We took him to the vet. He was tested agains Felv and FIV (luckly he has none of them), but the vet said he might have epylepsy, as he showed some pre-seizure sign at the vet's. He never had convulsions, his seizures show more like hyperestesia.
Aegir in 4 months never accepted them, and she becomes nasty when she smell them. Kiwi lately started to get uneasy around her. He doesn't hisses and doesn't try to fight, He gets nauseous and vomits when aroung Aegir. Olav is not scared by her, even if small, he challenge her, though not in an aggressive way yet.
They never meet Goku, but I showed them a picture of her, I let them smeel a piece of fur of her (I didn't cut it, it come out when I brushed her when she was still alive) and I even made them listen her meows. From the picture, they recognized it was a cat, and they even tried to search her. Goku was more easy going, despite her aggressive nature.
Goku will be missed forever...
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2007
2009 (she defeated cancer)
2010
2011
2012
2013
2015
2017 (On december, she showed early sign of kidney disease)
2018
2019
2020
19 years gone so fast. I miss her so much... my best cat...
Goku is dead
My cat Goku died yesterday, at the age of 19 and 3, to kidney failure. I miss her so much. I have her been cremated this morning, and now I keep her ashes in a heart-shaped urn. A Black urn, as black was her fur, in my bedroom. I was suggested to bury her in the garden. I also had the possibility to 'turn' my cat into a tree (there is an urn with seeds, you bury the urn and the seed will feed by your cat's ashes, growing a tree) But the issues I have with those options are that I felt like trowing my cat away, buried in an anonymous soil (even if it is my garden), and maybe having her body unearthed by some dog or some wild animal (such as a fox) right the next night. Or the tree, thinking at the tree falling sick and dying even younger than my cat (even though trees live some hundred or thousand years) or being cut because in a wrong place. I didn't want the cat I loved so much being trash or food for some animal. This week I'll adopt a new kitten. I love Goku but my life shouldn't be tied on her forever. Life would be sad without a cat. I still have Aegir and I love her (she's 9 years old and still think to be six months old), but for some reason I never had a strong connection with her. When Goku was sick those last days she caught for her a green lizard, but right now that Goku is gone, she is the elusive cat she has ever been.
My mum thinks is because she came when I still had Goku and I was connected to her. And this despite I taugh Aegir how to use the litter box. Despite I'm trying to protect her, as long as I can, from Kidney Disease. She has my bedroom and my terrace as base, but, even though I feed her, she still likes to feed by herself (capturing mices, her favourite food).
First. How do I change my E-mail on DA? I left when there still was the old style of navigation. Second - most important updates: My cat Goku. She is now 19 and 3. And lately she's not doing well at all. Her kidney worsened and she need injection to stay hidrated (This about last week). Now she spend all days sleeping, though she's feeling a bit better with injection. The vet said she's like a 100 years old person right now. I love my cat. I own her since I still went to school and, unfortunately, her time is coming. I also found why she has tiny ears. Her ears aren't only tiny and round, the cartilage is thick and the tip is all curled down. Apparently, she got the Scottish Fold gene. She's not a pedigree cat, but the gene occurred first spontaneosly, so it went around the word and some moggies are bort with it. And with that gene come also bad thing, such as arthritis. Luckily my cat only has one couple of the gene, but she got early sign of arthritis at young age of 8 and at 10 she started to move stiffly. I wont't posy anything anytime soon, I just managed to re-open my account.