Panda's Quiz

Answer: We had different father cats

A litter of kittens can be fathered by more than one tom cat (adult male). This is called superfecundation. When a female cat is in heat (her time to become pregnant) she can attract many different father cats. As a result, many female cats will have their ova (eggs) fertilized by the sperm of different males. The end result is a mixed litter of kittens that look quite different from one another.

Some female cats can actually go into heat when they are already pregnant. This is called superfetation and in a case like this, the mother cat is able to carry two litters inside her womb at different stages of development. The less developed litter can end up being born prematurely when the more advanced litter is born. If the younger litter is lucky they can manage to remain in their mother's womb for the full term. If so, they are usually born 2-6 weeks later than the first litter. Since there is a large percentage of different fathers for each litter, this is why the kittens look very different from one another.

I was black and white and my sister Peaches is orange, gray, black and white. In the litter of seven kittens, which I was a part of, none of us looked exactly alike.

Answer: To no longer drink milk from the mother cat

As a kitten, I begin to grow. My mother cat gradually stopped letting me drink her milk.
This process usually starts when kittens are around four weeks old. It can take a while and is normally complete between the kitten's eighth to tenth week. Moistened kitten food is good for a kitten and helps make the weaning process comfortable. If a kitten is very young, you may need to visit your veterinarian to get some special kitten formula. For example, if a kitten is under three weeks old and is not receiving mother cat's milk, then you will have to give the kitten formula every two to three hours. It will have to be under the guidance of a vet so you are not under feeding or over feeding. Gradually, as the kitten grows to about three weeks old the feedings will be larger feedings and they will become less frequent to about every six to eight hours. Once weaned from the mother cat or formula, a kitten will be eating kitten food and drinking plenty of fresh, clean water.
My owner made sure that I was given good food and delicious fresh water to keep me healthy.

Answer: Tuxedo cats

Tuxedo cats are bi-colored cats, meaning that we have two colors of fur, black and white. Sometimes people will call us Billicats because of our color pattern. To be called a tuxedo cat our black fur has to be solid black and the white fur has to be limited to the belly, chest, throat, face and paws. White on the chin is acceptable too.

In essence, a tuxedo cat looks like it's wearing a tuxedo. That is exactly what I looked like. I, Panda, was a beautiful tuxedo cat with the blackest black fur and the whitest white fur!

Answer: To check for ear mites

New kittens can have some problems that can be easily looked after. Going to the vet for a check up is very important, so my owner took me the day after she brought me home. The vet checked my eyes, ears, fur, heart, mouth and more. One of the important things about checking the ears is to make sure there are no ear mites.

The most common ear mites are known as Otodectes cynotis and live in the ears of animals. They can spread quite quickly and can cause ear infections. Our ears can become quite red and itchy. If the mites aren't cleared up we can end up getting skin infections around our neck and tail too. We can also end up deaf. To treat this, the vet has to remove the crusty brown material from inside our ears and then apply some antiparasitic medications which will kill the ear mites and make our ears nice and healthy.

There are some products that can be used on our skin and it will last about a month to protect us from getting ear mites. After my first visit to the vet, I was given a clean bill of health. My owner was very happy about that!

Answer: A scratching post

My owner loved me very much. She went to the local pet store and bought me an amazing scratching post. This particular one had three levels of ledges for me to recline on, a closed-in house to snooze in and also a hammock. There were great rope covered posts where I could scratch as often as I wanted to.

The reason she bought this was not just to pamper and spoil me rotten, but she also wanted me to learn to scratch my claws there, instead of on her furniture. She kept a very close eye on me and when I would start to scratch at her furniture, she would pick me up very tenderly and bring me to the post.

She would gently take both of my front paws, carefully push between the pads on the soles of my paws to make my claws come out and then she would softly rub my paws on the rope part of the scratching post.

While doing this she would always say, "Good girl, Panda!" After about three or four times, I would go over to that scratching post all by myself and scratch there. She always called me a good girl when she saw me doing that. I did a lot of scratching post scratching because I loved being called a good girl!

Answer: Being operated on so I couldn't have kittens

My responsible owner made a wise decision to have me spayed. This is a surgery that female cats have so that we won't have kittens. Male cats get a surgery called neutering so that they can't make female cats pregnant for kittens. There are a lot of situations where kittens are born and not wanted. Kittens are set free into the wild and they become known as feral cats.

These are the babies of domestic cats. My owner didn't want me to have kittens since it is sometimes difficult to find responsible owners for them.

When I had my surgery, it was not very uncomfortable and I went home the same day. I slept a lot for the first and second days home and was not to be picked up unless it was very carefully. My owner took great care of me and pampered me with lots of petting and snuggles.

Answer: Rabies prevention

None of these things exist except for a rabies shot, which prevented me from contracting rabies. Rabies is a viral disease which causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). This terrible virus affects the central nervous system and if untreated it is fatal.

A lot of the early symptoms are tiredness, headache, fever, pain, depression, fear of water (hydrophobia), violent movements, respiratory insufficiency and if untreated results in death. Fortunately for me, my owner did not want me to ever contract this virus so the vaccine was very important. I also had vaccinations against other diseases so that I would be protected. Every year I had to have my shots and my owner always kept that appointment.

She took the best care of me.

Answer: Sleeping in my hammock

Even though some people think cats can talk, we use a variety of ways to help our owners know what we want. We need to communicate with them and with other cats so we've created our own ways to do this. We use body language such as swishing our tail when we're upset or simply trying to decide something. I liked to swish my tail when I was thinking about pouncing on my sister Peaches. I liked to meow loudly and then hold my tail very stiff and way over my back until it almost touched the back of my head. I was telling my owner how happy I was to see her by doing this. Myself and other cats, like my sister Peaches and my brother Smokey, use our posture and our personal scent to communicate. We hiss to say we're annoyed, frightened or angry and we purr to show contentment. We can make, what humans call a "silent meow". You can see our mouth open but you don't hear anything. That's because we can make a meow so high pitched that your human ears can't hear it. Our vocabulary ranges from twittering noises, to grunts, to kittenish mews, to caterwauls and to chattering, especially when we see a bird. Cat owners do get to know how we communicate and what most of our sounds mean. We generally use the loud meow so that our owners will come and see if they can figure out what we want. We do like to do this just to make them get up! My owner almost always knew what I wanted.

Answer: I loved her

I could always show my owner love and affection in many ways. We cats think that our owners are just big cats so we try to copy what they do when they show us that they love us. My owner hugged me a lot so I would grab hold of her hand with my paw and gently hang on with my claws. I would squeeze softly which was how I could hug her. Sometimes, when she was carrying me with my front paws and head over her shoulder, I would just hug her around the neck with my paws.

She also kissed me on the head, neck and front paws a lot, so when I wanted to kiss her I would lick her hand, fingers and often her nose while I purred very loudly. My favorite way to show love was with my facial expressions. I would tenderly close my eyes slowly and then open them slowly, repeating this over and over again.

She would say to me, "Oh, Panda, such beautiful love eyes! You are such a good girl!" I gave her "love eyes" practically every day because I loved being called a good girl.

Answer: They searched for me

Peaches and Smokey could sense that I was sick and going to die. They avoided me for the two weeks that I was struggling. They didn't upset me or make demands on me, leaving me alone so that I could rest and die peacefully. After I passed away, they searched the house for me, sniffing at every place they knew I had been.

They searched for me inside and outside. This is believed to be a cat's way of accepting the finality of death. Peaches waited two days and then took over my role of matriarch. That means, since I was no longer in charge of them, Peaches became in charge and started to watch over Smokey. Both Peaches and Smokey were withdrawn for two days because they missed me. I acted like a mother to Smokey, who is a year younger. Because of this, he spent more time searching for me. Quickly, Peaches took over as his mother figure and began to groom him like I used to always do. Peaches holds her tail high and stiffly over her back now, which she never did before I died. She is showing that she is now the matriarch of our cat family. My owner was sad for a few days but she knows that I will always be right there in her heart. Remember that our owner is the "big cat" and my passing affected her very much. Now she has memories of me to hold on to.