Dear Siouxsie, Thomas and Dahlia:
We are looking for a new kitten to add to our cat family. When I was in the animal shelter this past weekend, the person helping us was asking questions about the cats we currently have in our home. This was to better find a kitten that would suit our household. One of the things this person mentioned was color of the cat. She was confused, as we have an assortment of colors. She said that they usually try to pair up same colors as some colors do not get along. She said that the other cats know the color of each other by scent. I had never heard of this, have you?

~Karen

Siouxsie: A lot of shelters will try to match up cats by temperament -- how active they are, how well they get along with other cats, how they relate to people, stuff like that. But we've never heard of matching cats by color!

Thomas: Maybe the shelter person is an interior decorator and was mistakenly thinking of cats as if they were pieces of furniture or art works.

Dahlia: I like all kinds of cats! It doesn't matter what color they are.

Siouxsie: Mama says there's a book called What Color is Your Cat? In this book the writer (in humor, she hopes) listed certain mood or behavior characteristics of cats based on the color of their fur. But Mama says she read the book and from her experience there's no truth to it at all -- although she did get a good laugh here and there.

Thomas: Saying that all cats of a certain color have certain behaviors is just like saying that all humans of a certain color act the same. I mean, do all pink humans act the same? Do all brown humans act the same? Not in our experience!

Dahlia: Just as with humans, the way we act depends a lot more on how we were raised than what color we are.

Siouxsie: Purebred cats do tend to have similar temperaments -- for example, Siamese cats are known to be talkative and kind of high-strung, while Persians tend to be sedentary and quiet. This happens in part because when humans breed cats for a certain body type, that influences our body chemistry and therefore our behavior.

Thomas: But seal-point Siamese and lilac-point Siamese still act like Siamese cats, even though their coat colors are different. Same thing with blue Persians and red Persians. And even in the purebreds, the way the cat is raised can cause a Siamese to be more mellow or a Persian to be more active.

Dahlia: We cats do recognize each other by scent, so your shelter person was half-right.

Siouxsie: But again, the way we smell has a lot less to do with the color of our fur than it does with the food we eat and the environment we live in.

Thomas: That's why Siouxsie hisses at me when I come back from a trip to the vet. I don't smell like home anymore; I smell like the vet's office!

Dahlia: But a good grooming will get you smelling like yourself again, right?

Siouxsie: Right! And I hiss at you less when you smell like your natural poo-smelling self than when you smell like the vet.

Dahlia: I don't smell like poo!

Siouxsie: Yes you do. Hissss!

Thomas: She does not, Siouxsie. Now stop being such a meanie. Don't worry, Dahlia, Siouxsie's just being a curmudgeon. Come here, sweetie, and let me groom your head. Everything's gonna be okay.

Dahlia: Thank you. Yes ... right behind the ear ... and just there where I can't quite reach ... that feels so good! Purrrrrrrr. Oh, and I've got an itch under my necklace ... aaah, that's so much better! Thomas, you're the best big brother in the whole world!

Siouxsie: Stinky little kitten-lover. Grrrrrr.

Thomas: Anyway, as we were saying, our scent is less about our color than about our environment. That's why it helps when introducing a new cat if you can get some of "your" scent on the new cat before he or she meets the feline family.

Dahlia: When Mommy brought me to her home, she put one of her shirts into my carrying box, and I slept on it and got her scent on me. Then when I got to my new home, I smelled sort of like her.

Siouxsie: You still smelled like poo!

Dahlia: Thomas, Siouxsie's being mean again!

Thomas: Siouxsie, you're lucky that I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Siouxsie: Yeah, whatever. Karen, the point is that no matter what color we are, we cats smell like our home environment. Thomas has gray stripes and white spots, for example, and I'm black, and we both smell like Mama's home.

Thomas: While it is a good idea for shelters to match cats to homes based on temperament and lifestyle, fur color has nothing to do with anything.

Dahlia: Some humans seem to have a weird obsession with skin or fur color, and I just don't understand it. I've met cats and people of all sorts of different colors, and I love them all. As long as they're warm and friendly, I don't care if they're black or orange or pink or stripy or inked all over or whatever!

Got a question? Need some advice? E-mail us at advice@paws-and-effect.com. None of the material in this column is meant to be a substitute for regular veterinary care.