For Bob Cat fans

[Otter]

I've been posting a lot about Bob Cat and the good folks on this forum have followed her through a lot, so here are some pictures of her and her kittens.

Here is Bob, sleeping with her kitten, Kirk the 2nd, named by DS, after a very beloved cat.


This is Bob and Dax. They are co-mothering their kittens, Bob had 3 and Dax had 2. We had intended for Dax to have a litter, just not now, but this was actually for the best as I am getting a chapter on co-mothering and a chapter on kitten development. They will both be spayed when the kittens are weaned.


And it is really, really sweet.

[Otter]

The other kittens
This is Clark, claimed by DD, who sadly lost her 10 yo cat, Karma, to lung cancer.
This picture color is accurate, btw. It is called chocolate


Here is Brooke, Dax's girl, chocolate tabby, being incredibly photogenic.


And this is Frost, Bob's girl, getting ready to pounce - a very new trick for them!


And finally, Thundercat, also named by DS

[katievt]

Nice! Years ago, we had a mother/daughter pair that each had a litter. Lucy and Noah (same story as Bob for her name) raised them together until Noah was hit by a car. Lucy continued to raise both litters by herself.

[Maura]

Neighbors had a mother and daughter cat have litters at the same time and they co-mothered. When the mom cat had another litter she died with the kittens were about four weeks old and her daughter finished raising the babies. Cats are so interesting.

[Otter]

They really are! And so misunderstood. I look at this and then hear people say "Cats are naturally solitary creatures" and other such nonsense. I'm working on a book about cat behavior.

The fascinating part of this is Dax and Bob are totally unrelated. Dax was born here and Bob was dumped when she was 6 - 8 months old. They never really took much notice of each other, neither friendly or unfriendly. they entirely bonded through their kittens. Gave birth in spots 4 feet away from each other and now, well, as you see.

Dax had another litter a year ago (this is the 2nd and last, and I kept everyone) and her mother, Thistle, who was spayed a month before Dax gave birth, helped to raise that litter, and actually came into milk. The social urge is that strong.

[Mari-in-IN]

I've been following your threads in regards to "Bob".  So glad everything turned out ok!  Really enjoyed the pics...  Love the one that is chocolate colored!  Have seen A LOT of cats in my time but never that color!  Thanks for sharing...
Regards,
Mari

[Otter]

It is a very unusual color!
The very first chocolate colored cat I ever saw was our own chocolate tabby Thistle, who I adopted out of a box at a street fair. She was the only tabby and had 3 black and white siblings, and one solid chocolate and white one.

Spaying is hard and expensive to do here. There is ONE vet for 3 counties who will spay a cat and they are booked pretty far in advance. Thistle, 3 years running, had kittens within 3 days of her spay appt before we were finally able to get her done. The appointments are so hard to get that after the 2nd time she did it, I just started what we call The Annual Spay Round-up, because people also dump cats here pretty regularly. Bob would have been to this year's if we hadn't thought she was already done! Toms are every bit as expensive to fix so we only do them when we can afford it so Thistle has a couple of chocolate colored sons around here, who may have been the father. But a neighbor has a siamese colored boy, who may also have been the father and Siamese is the breed chocolate comes from.

The color is pretty rare and very attractive and a big part of why I am ok with raising a couple of generations of the same family line for book research. And I rescue one (actually usually more like 3) for every cat I allow to be born here. We have a pretty stable pride here and I hope others find it as fascinating as I do.