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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.
Black and blotched
tabby colors 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 color
linked to sociability and less of the cats
showing a coat color 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.
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) favors those individuals
with smaller adrenal glands as they stick around
while the others run away. If the black color 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.
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