Dr. Meow Meow
Prof. Pet Studies (Veterinarian)
Dr. Meow Meow
Prof. Pet Studies (Veterinarian)
At the cat shelter where I work we refer to "naughty torties" and "laid back blacks". One of our vets also used the "naughty tortie" epithet and told us it is "well known that tortie cats are temperamental". However, the addition of white has a "calming effect" and tortie-and-whites are "not quite as temperamental as brindled torties. The naughty tortie tag is not applied to dilute torties (blue-creams), possibly because they are less common in the moggy population. Ginger cats are said to be spirited and fiery (and sometimes mean-spirited or sly) - very apt considering their fiery colour and there is the epithet "ginger tom" to describe the supposedly typical alley cat. Blotched tabbies are "real homebodies" while their striped cousins are "more independent".
Common stereotypes are the "archetypal ginger tom" - the flea-bitten, irascible alley cat. Ginger females are "flighty". Confusingly, ginger cats are also quoted as being laid back, but they supposedly have very hot tempers when annoyed - just like the stereotype of human red-heads, especially those of fiery Celtic origin (which would include me). Oddly enough, ginger colouration in cats is relatively common in Scotland. A fiery or assertive temperament might be an advantage in some environments - for both cats and humans! Meanwhile, blotched tabbies of either gender are considered "comfortable, home-loving" cats; languid and good pets. Many cards depict tabby cats curled up by a fire as a symbol of domestic warmth and comfort. Black and white cats are said to be wanderers while white cats are shy or nervy.
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Posted on November 4, 2024
How much of this is myth and how much is a cat's colour and pattern linked to personality? Both are, after all, inherited and genetically controlled, so it is not impossible for coat colour to be linked to temperament. We selectively breed cats for their looks, but seldom for personality. Coat colour, fur type and certain personality traits may be linked genetically. In some rodents, the white colour is associated with greater docility and increased tolerance of handling which may be why white mice and white rats are common laboratory animals.
Dr Gordon Stables, in 1872, firmly attributed different characters to felines of differing coat colours. In his list of classes at the Birmingham and Crystal Palace shows he described the exhibits. His description of the Red Tabby in class V read; "The Red Tabby ought to approach in size and shape, nearly to the Brown. They are the same kind-hearted, good-natured animals as their brown brethren, and as a rule are better hunters. They go farther afield and tackle larger game. They are often, moreover, very expert fishers." (Cats are, in general, enthusiastic rather than expert fishers.) In the Red "Urbanity of countenance not to be overlooked". Meanwhile, of the Brown Tabby he wrote that they "possess all pussy s noblest attributes to perfection! They are docile, honest and faithful ... seldom take undue advantage of their great strength". According to Gordon Stables in 1872, there was a tradition that white cats were favoured as mousers by millers as they did not show up against the flour bags.
R S Huidekoper in his book, The Cat (1895) wrote of colours and temperaments. Of the black-and-white biclour he wrote " It tends more than any other cat to become fat and indolent, or ragged and wretched, as the case may be. [...] The Black and White cat is affectionate and cleanly, but it is a selfish animal, and is not one for children to play with." Huidekoper went on to claim that the gene which caused a cat to have white markings was also responsible for a drastic deterioration in temperament: "The Tortoiseshell and White [...] is apt to become lazy when old - the more so the more white there is in its markings. These cats are excessively cleanly, and vain of their white, spending much of their time in keeping themselves clean." A tortoiseshell without any white, however was "one of the best hunters [...] a most patient mouser, and is brave to the extreme. It is not over affectionate, and sometimes even sinister and most ill-tempered in its disposition."
An all-white cat was "of a timid disposition, very fond of petting and cuddling, it is quiet in its manners, delicate in its temperament, and honest in its character. It would much prefer to be fed from the saucer, and from the table while lying on a chair, than go roaming for prey or stealing from the kitchen. White Cats are, however, sometimes excellent mousers, and are especially popular pets with millers, as their colour can scarcely be seen among the sacks of Hour. White Cats are often deaf, and sometimes blind, without any appearance of organic change in the eyes."
In 1981, Phyllis Lauder wrote, "I bred a nice Tortoiseshell kitten who, in fact, won her open class at the Southern Cat Club s Show in London, and an older colleague asked me 'Does she play with water?' I admitted with surprise that this kitten dearly loved a tap left dripping and would sit hitting droplets of water with her paws. 'Tortoiseshells always do,' said my friend quite seriously, and I realised with surprise that of the many kittens I had bred this, the only Tortoiseshell, was also the only one who played with water."
Adding another layer of confusion to the colour/temperament argument is the idiosyncratic British system of classifying breeds! Under the British GCCF, the Blue Persian, White Persian and Red Persian etc are all different breeds. This meant that differnt colours were developed at different rates (something which was noticeable in Chinchilla Persians for a long while being less ultra-typed than the blue or red Persians). Temperament traits may well have become fixed in some lines as breeders attempted to get the best colour and accidentally bred in docility - or the opposite - at the same time! This may be why I have such differing opinions from the USA where the colour classification system is generally rather more sensible.
How did Cats with red and cream coats get their reputation for being "difficult"? It seems partly due to an erroneous conclusion from a behavioural study conducted in Edinburgh by Rebecca Ledger and Valerie O'Farrell, "Factors Influencing the Reactions of Cats to Humans and Novel Objects," published in the Proceedings of the 30th International Congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology (Guelph: Col. K. L. Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare, 1996), 112.
This breed is known to be affectionate and develop strong bonds with one or two people in their families. However, Turkish Vankedisi show affection in their own ways. They’ll tolerate cuddles and being petted, but they’re usually not lap cats. They prefer showing their love by spending time and playing with their favorite people. They’ll also follow you from room to room and stay close by your side, even if they don’t want to be touched. Although they’re not cuddly lap cats, Turkish Vankedisi like being around their family members and don’t usually tolerate being alone for long hours. Therefore, they do best in families where someone is usually around or with people who work from home.
Their study aimed to identify temperament differences in kittens and factors which influenced their behavioural responses to an unfamiliar person, handling, an alarm clock and a clockwork mouse. The behavioural responses of 29 litters of pedigree British Shorthair kittens (84 kittens) and their parents, were scored to these tests. These cats and kittens were from the Edinburgh area of Scotland; this made it likely that they were related because several breeders would have been choosing the same prize-winning stud cats for their females. The researchers found that kittens with red or cream coat colour (indicating the presence of the red coat colour gene), made the most escape attempts when handled by an unfamiliar person and struggled for a longer time compared to kittens which did not carry the red coat gene. They were unable to correlate the behavioural responses of fathers and their kittens so they simply concluded that "cats without red coats are less fearful and more handleable than cats with red coats."
According to John Bradshaw in his book "Cat Sense" (2013), scientists were able to trace this back to one male with a particularly difficult temperament. To this I will add that this male, almost certainly red, passed on his temperament genes along with his colour and this could have been inherited through the mothers (there was a correlation between mothers' and kittens' behaviour). By restricting themselves to one breed to eliminate random factors, the researchers introduced an obfuscating factor (a common ancestor with a poor temperament) and reached an incorrect conclusion! They may also have been led into this conclusion, and not sought other factors (a common ancestor), through subconscious bias about cats with red or tortie coats.
Part of the problem is that owners expect cats to conform to stereotypes. If you tell people that black cats are sweeter natured and ginger cats are mean tempered, those people are likely to focus on the stereotype behaviours and disregard contradictory behaviours as being "out of character". Human beings dislike chaos and unpredictability and look for order and patterns in everything - that is how we have become the most successful species on the planet - and sometimes we find (or invent) patterns where there are actually no pattern at all.
Having learnt that tortie cats are temperamental or hot-tempered, a shelter helper is likely to approach a tortoiseshell cat much more cautiously. The cat detects this nervousness and is more likely to act up with a nervous helper than with a confident helper. On the other hand, having learnt that blotched tabbies are homebodies and that black cats are mellow, the incautious helper risks nasty injuries when encountering a feral cat which just happens to be a blotched tabby or solid black. There is great danger in looking for stereotypes where none exist. In 1958, PM Soderberg wrote in "Pedigree Cats" "Many people have stated from time to time that the character of the Red Tabby is much more independent, and yet at the same time friendly, than most cats which belong to other breeds. This may well be merely wishful thinking, for taken all in all a cat s habits develop largely according to the people who care for it."
Black and blotched tabby colours are possibly linked to a less assertive temperament, more placid character and better tolerance of crowding than striped tabby or agouti (ticked). If true, this factor would have contributed to a more sociable cat both with humans and with other cats in a colony situation. The predominance of black/black-and-white in urban environments might therefore be linked to this greater sociability. A stressed cat breeds less successfully and passes its genes on fewer times. A stressed mother may miscarry or kill her kittens. A cat which is less stressed in a colony situation will pass its genes on more often. Soon, there will be more of the cats showing a coat colour linked to sociability and less of the cats showing a coat colour linked to unsociability. In the rural environment, a better camouflaged striped cat is likely to be a more successful hunter and will therefore breed more successfully than a less well camouflaged cat. Natoli & DeVito (2001) theorised that orange cats (stereotyped as more highly strung) are uncommon in high-density urban feral colonies compared to "easy-going" black or black-and-white cats. One suggestion is that the more easy-going cats wait their turn to mate with the females: they haven't wasted time and energy fighting and by the time it is their turn, the earlier matings have stimulated the female to ovulate ... just in time to be fertilised by her later suitors' sperm. The actual colours found in these populations would likely depend more on the founder effect.
In a study over a large geographical area in Bavaria, black and black-and-white cats were fund to wander further from home. The study was large enough to suggest that this had a genetic basis and was not purely coincidental. Many professional animal trainers consider black cats to be stubborn and single-minded and more difficult to train to walking on a harness and leash. Some go as far as to consider black cats as hard to work with as uncastrated tomcats, though my own experiences (as a cat owner and cat shelter worker) do not bear this out.
The assertive or reactive temperament is linked to the size of the cat's adrenal glands. Domestic cats have smaller adrenal glands than the ancestral wildcat, making domestic cats less "flighty". A cat with smaller adrenal glands is less reactive. Alternatively, if cats are in a situation where they do not need to be so reactive, selection (natural or artificial) favours those individuals with smaller adrenal glands as they stick around while the others run away. If the black colour really was linked to greater tolerance it would also be linked to the size of the adrenal gland. There is currently no evidence to support this.
Conversely, assertive or aggressive cats would be expected to pass on their genes more often by fighting off the competition. According to Steve Jones in his book "The Single Helix", the gene for the orange colour is linked to aggressiveness hence the preponderance of ginger toms in feral colonies - they out-fight other coloured tomcats. A study conducted by Ledger & O Farrell (1996) found that cream, red and tortie kittens struggled for longer when held by unfamiliar individuals and tried harder to escape than other coloured kittens, but I can find no other research upholding this claim. The orange gene is carried on the X chromosome (males need only one copy of the gene in order to be a ginger tom) and the ginger colour overrides other colours that are carried on other chromosomes; this is the real reason ginger toms are so common. Perhaps Jones failed to notice the placid ginger males because he was too busy looking for a link with aggression.
A scientific explanation has been offered for the "tortie temperament". Female cats inherit an X chromosome from the mother and from the father. To be tortie, a female has the "O" gene on one X chromosome, but no "O" gene on her other X chromosome. During embryo formation, each cell of the embryo randomly switches off one or other X chromosome (X chromosome inactivation). On the skin, this shows as red and black patches and is known as mosaicism. The switching off takes place in all tissues of the body, including the brain cells. The naughty tortie temperament may be due to X chromosome inactivation in the brain tissues - the brain is a mosaic of 2 types of cell, some with the mother's X chromosome and some with the father's X chromosome. This may cause a mixed-up temperament as well as a mixed up coat pattern.
Blotched tabby and black are both caused by recessive genes. Two black cats will beget more black cats. Two blotched tabbies will beget blotched tabbies, not striped tabbies. These recessive genes can stay hidden in other-colour populations for many generations before resurfacing. If natural or artificial selection favours blotched or black cats, the dominant striped varieties die out because blotched and black breed true. Because recessive genes can be hidden or masked, striped tabbies can produce unexpected blotched tabby kittens so if natural or artificial selection favours striped cats, the blotched or black varieties remain hidden but not lost.
White cats are reputed to be timid or a little dim. Many blue-eyed white cats, and some odd-eyed whites and orange-eyed whites, have hereditary deafness. The white coat colour has sometimes been linked to personality traits of slow thinking, dull intellect and (mostly in females) timidity of character - though these traits could equally well be due to deafness. A deaf cat does not react to sounds - such as the owner calling his name - and this can be misinterpreted as slow-wittedness.
Different colours arose in different parts of the world as spontaneous mutations in local cat populations. Those populations may also have had distinct personalities. The colourpointed pattern arose in Asia and is naturally occurring in Thailand (Siam) and Malaysia. The lilac colour may also have appeared in that general area. Blue (grey) possibly arose in Asia where it is now seen in the Korat breed and this colour may have spread from there into Russia (Russian Blue).
The ticked and mackerel tabby patterns (and the spotted pattern as this is a form of mackerel tabby) are seen in depictions of ancient cats. Just like the tiger's stripes, the mackerel tabby pattern provides camouflage in woodland and grasses at dusk and dawn. Other colours would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb and the cat would be a less successful hunter or would be easy prey for something else. The blotched tabby mutation is believed to have occurred in Britain and spread with throughout the former British Empire with human colonists. Blotched tabby is found in the former British colonies, but is less common elsewhere and unknown in some parts.
The natural environment the cat lives in will determine the colours that predominate. Black and white forms predominate in urban ferals, but rural ferals are more likely to be tabby. In a rural environment, striped tabby provides a better camouflage (hence the European Wildcat is striped) and solid colour cats would be at a disadvantage. The tabby pattern breaks up the cat's outline and blends into the shadows of trees and woodland, when the cat hunts at dusk or dawn. In towns, where cats are frequently scavengers and where they are less likely to be predated upon, black or blotched tabby are not disadvantageous.
Dark-coloured cats are believed to be more common where cats live closely with man, therefore, the earlier the urbanisation of a place, the greater the proportion of dark forms (at least until the advent of neutering). This theory suggests that where cat arrived in America in the 17th century, the greatest variability in colour will be found in the older industrial societies where they have had more time to mutate and where population density has selected for more sociable strains. Body type and fur length show signs of natural selection (e.g. a stocky rather than lithe body type in American Shorthairs, longer fur in Maine Coons), but the theory regarding colour evolution will probably never be proven. The common tabby pattern of the Maine Coon probably reflects that fact that these cats accompanied British colonists all over the world. In Australia, a high proportion of bush cats (rural ferals) have reverted to the brown mackerel pattern (with or without white spotting) which provides the best camouflage when hunting or being hunted.
"Tuxedo cats, black with white on the paws, belly and sometimes a little on the face, are lovers: gentle, soft-hearted, non-aggressive and loud purrers. They are lazy and like to be on your lap. Very loveable. Tigers (tabbies) are more wild and tend to be good hunters. Sometimes they scratch. Little grey (blue) cats are independent and smart [UK: bright], also excellent hunters with fast reflexes. Orange cats tend to get a little bit fat. All of these descriptions are based on American shorthair cats, not purebred. "
Allison Voedisch described her three American domestic shorthairs (all adopted strays). Her grey male (no white) is calm, extremely friendly, a wanderer and a peacekeeper. He is also extremely attached to Allison. Her black-and-white "tuxedo" male is a "cat's cat" and slightly overweight, playful, talkative and was found wandering around a cornfield. Her tortoiseshell (no appreciable white) is a good mouser, inclined to be temperamental and naughty, but doesn't bite or scratch; though spayed she has strong maternal instincts. She is affectionate on her own terms and can be very snuggly when she wants to be. A longhaired red tabby male (a tamed feral) was skittish, but affectionate, playful, and an excellent mouser. He was more attached to his tamer, Allison, than to other family members.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan writes: "Well, I can't contribute my data point to the perceived color-temperament link because I don't believe there is one. I do have a suspicion that there are character traits associated with long-established breeds, since despite never having had the honor of owning a Siamese or Oriental (my cats are either foundlings or rescued) everybody tells me they are smart, talkative and affectionate, and I met at least one exceptionally dumb Persian. Personally, though, I've had five cats, three of them tabbies (grey, blue-cream and grey-brown) and each of them had a completely different personality, with the latest arrival, my beloved brown tabby Zip, being closest in personality to short lived hyper black shorthair mongrel Ombra. Black cats are decidedly unpopular in Italy and greatly feared for their supposed ill-luck association. Some people will go so far as to deliberately run over black cats on the road if they can."
Tina in the USA (formerly of Canada) wrote that her cream Persian male was a 'Buddha incarnate' with a sense of humor and her chinchilla female was small, timid and very ladylike. Tina's flame-point Siamese male was a gentle giant who personified love. Her tortie-and-white girl is bright and mischievous and has figured out on her own how to use the toilet as well as wanting to be top cat. Tina's sister's tuxedo black-and-white female, adopted as a kitten, was an unaffectionate cat.
Lisa Lorea added the following observations while researching the temperaments of orange (red) tabby males in 2006. She had heard from several people that orange males were considered particularly intelligent, trainable, affectionate and unflappable. She had met an animal trainer for the film industry who had told her that animal trainers seek out orange males because of those personality traits hence orange tabbies are the most commonly seen cat in movies, television and commercials. Orange cats include Morris the Cat (American cat food "spokescat") who has been played by several animals over the years. Lisa's own orange tabby male shorthair, Peabody, is top cat in her household and has the aforementioned traits as well as being maternal towards kittens. Peabody does a number of tricks on verbal commands. He is also talkative and follows Lisa around in a dog-like manner.
Lisa also added comments based on her mixed breed cats. She found grey (blue) tabbies to be affectionate, but somewhat lazy and uninteresting as pets while solid grey (blue) cats are very independent and will bond strongly to a single person; both of Lisa's solid greys were small females that rode on her shoulder. Her black female Maine Coon/moggy mix seemed to enjoy naughtiness for its own sake, but was also so affectionate as to be emotionally needy. Her tortie female (the runt of a litter) was intelligent, independent and not at all feminine. She was also "a little crazy" and erratic (though she died aged 9 of a neurological problem). This tortie played with the water in her dish and was fascinated by the bath and shower.
