Pugwash might have 'blue blood'!

[Crewella]

Last week someone sent me a card with a blue/grey cat on it, the cat looked just like Pugwash with leathery, very high set ears and it got me wondering if he might be a particular breed. I did a bit of research, and hey presto - every point in the description of a Chartreux hits home.

Sturdy body and fine legs, high set ears, grey coat, gold/amber eyes, blue/grey nose, rose taupe pads - even the description of their character as obedient and loyal, and likely to follow their human from room to room hits home. But the very best thing was the description of their coat as double-layered, water-proof and woolly 'like sheepskin', because it's exactly like that and this explains why his coat won't go silky like the rest of the gang! I can stop worrying about its condition and brushing it every day - it's meant to be like that!!

Of course, I've no idea if he's pure bred, nor do I care (and even if he was he'd be a 'reject' as he has a white patch on his chest). It's just been interesting to get a better understanding of him, and it makes his past even more intriguing - I really would love to know his story and what happened to him before he arrived at mine as an emaciated stray!

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[SarahT1 [PLLE]]

Oh bless him. He does look rather proud and regal in his photograph, Helen. I think he's rather glad that you've caught on!

[Lilith]

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I've always thought that Finn had Siamese blood and Mouse (who I'm certain is his daughter) had a perfect Siamese head as a kitten. Molly I think is half Burmese. In the 80s a friend's Siamese sneaked quietly away (without yelling her head off as they usually do) and had a passionate affair with a local cross-Siamese tom, resulting in the arrival of my George and the dreaded Leopard lol.

So many people buy pedigrees and don't neuter them as they intend to breed - or the cats manage to get out when THEY intend to breed lol. Resulting in a lot of little 'illegitimates.' The good old melting pot! Being a mixture myself I've got to approve lol!

Whatever Pugwash is (and that's interesting about the coat!) he's a very special and gorgeous guy!

Errm sorry edit - NOT saying I approve of not neutering or the little illegitimates btw (given the unwanted strays/kittens situation) just that the melting pot is interesting

[nannymcfee]

Is Monsieur puggy pugwash intelligent ? as that breed are renowned for being so, and it says they chirrup not meow often, with a french accent ......

Not many in UK , do you think he was bred for £££ but due to little white patch didn't scrub up to the criteria,

From your links he does have a look about him, but nothing regal is there Puggy ...

[Crewella]

I confess that thinking of him as 'regal' requires a major reworking of they way I view him - he was called 'Tramp' by the vet nurses for goodness sake! He remains the same old ageing swashbuckler he's always been ...... but maybe I'll call him 'Captain' a bit more often.

Yes, he is bright and his reflexes are lightning-fast, in spite of his age. He is also, surprisingly, turning out to be quite obedient and is learning the house rules. A few months ago I would never have believed that we'd be able to eat out tea on our laps with our food-obsessed pirate sitting patiently between us ..... watching every mouthful and sniffing like Puffing Billy, but no longer trying to launch himself onto our plates!

The one thing that doesn't fit is that he is quite vocal ...... though it sounds nothing like the others and is more of a groan than a meow. Perhaps that's the French accent?

[Lilith]

Does 'e say 'Voici ze cheeseburger! Permettez moi?' or 'can I has?'

[Crewella]

Eet ees more: "me donner le cheeseburger, chien scorbut"!

[Lilith]

Ouch!

Ce n'est pas le gentleman eh?

As my Finn used to say about chicken and chips - let's share. I'll have the chicken and you can have the chips

[Crewella]

That's a fine sense of fair play!

Puggy'd want the chips too - both my ex-stray boys, Daz and Pugwash, love chips!

[greenkitty]

Lovely see some Puggy photos, still can't quite believe it's the same mog, quite fitting if that is his heritage, he just keeps on surprising us!

[Mrs Kane]

Sounds to me like Pugwash needs to be deemed as an Admiral right away!

Though I am amazed you taught him how to not steal your food. I've have to resort to feather duster or just shutting ours out of the room if there's something particularly tasty on our plates (Funnily enough she never jumps up on the table when we have pasta salad, odd that )
He certainly sounds like an intelligent little boy.
I suppose it's possible he was bought (or brought in) by a rich family in the area that couldn't be arsed to look after him. Crewella, are you by any chance secretly living in Hollywood? I jest. But it's always possible. Rare breeds tend to come from all over to get a taste of the British Tea-sipping lifestyle.

[Lilith]

Puggy'd want the chips too - both my ex-stray boys, Daz and Pugwash, love chips!

Lol that reminds me of the days when I used to cook a big Sunday dinner and my naughtiest Siamese, Majdhar (aka Gibbon, the one who gave rise to the joke about mealtimes being a case of a little Gibbon take) arrived punctually at my plate.

Wow. Roast lamb, roast spuds, Yorkshire pudding, gravy and all the trimmings. Before I could stop her she pounced...and marched off growling like a lioness with kill...with a great hunk of CAULIFLOWER, dripping with mint sauce, gripped in her jaws.

Trust her to do the unexpected!

[meriad]

that is too funny Lilith

[Lilith]

LOL Meriad, I could go on...

Like the Christmas get-together where she was the life and soul of the party, hooking the tops off the vol-au-vents and hoovering up the creamed mushrooms within (luckily my guests lived with Siamese too.) And she LOVED curry - definitely worth washing her whiskers for!

One of her litter sisters had a passion for spaghetti; as her new owners put it, this had to be seen to be believed.

And there was the boy I bred who, in his new home, developed a passion for white wine...

I advised him to copy his mother and stick to Ribena!

Errm Crewella what do Daz and Puggy do when there's beer and takeaway on the menu? Do they have a lads' night out?

[Crewella]

Lads night in .... waiting .... patiently!

Love that your girl liked at least one of her five a day!

[bobbys girl]

Wow. Roast lamb, roast spuds, Yorkshire pudding, gravy and all the trimmings. Before I could stop her she pounced...and marched off growling like a lioness with kill...with a great hunk of CAULIFLOWER, dripping with mint sauce, gripped in her jaws.

That sounds like Tommy and the Turkey portions that he pinched the other week.

Willow LOVES pork 'soggage'. But we have to make sure it's one made by our local butchers (they don't use onion in the mix - 90% meat!)

Helen - your suspicions about Puggy don't surprise me. He is not your every day cat is he?!

[Lilith]

Lol Bobbys girl - has Tommy been at it again? I remember the duck; I wasn't the sharpest nail in the box that day and the only comment I could think of was 'a fowl trick' ... Aww Willow and her 'soggage'...the other day Molly begged for a bit of my Scotch egg; I told her she'd only bat it about and hide it to go mouldy but I gave her a bit of the meat and sure enough she played hockey with it until it landed up in one of my slippers. It gave her endless pleasure to fish it out and finally eat it.

It's amazing what they will eat - I've known two cats that loved ...chocolate...???

[bobbys girl]

I swear Tommy has a 'Meat Radar'. When I get back from the butchers, he appears and sits, with his Charlie Chaplin feet and a big grin on his face, watching what I do with it.

Willow is the same when it comes to rice pudding, custard or yoghurt.

Helen, Just thought, does this mean you will have to start calling him 'Your Royal Pussiness' (or is that just me with Willow?)

[Crewella]

Oh no .... this household is a democratic republic, though in practice it's more of a benign dictatorship with Daz as the undisputed but somewhat laid-back leader!

My real joy in this discovery is that I have a better understanding of him, and his coat in particular. I've been combing him every day (which he hates beyond his head and shoulders) and trying to get his fur into a 'better' condition, and it has been truly wonderful to realise that it's supposed to be woolly and clump in the way that it does and that I no longer have to put him through the daily wrestle with the dreaded comb!

Funnily enough, I've always championed 'mogs' and said I wouldn't have a 'breed', but obviously the circumstances of his arrival and the fact that we love him to bits mean he's here to stay. He will remain 'Pugwash', 'Puggy the Thuggy', 'Pigwash', 'Puglet' and all the other things we call him, and as I think all cats should live like princes hopefully we will do him justice.

It is, however, nice for him to stand out in some way other than as 'the most unhomeable cat we've ever had', which is how he's sometimes described! As a grumpy, food-obsessed, elderly cat with health issues that bites, swipes, growls a lot and likes to poo in OH's shoes he's wouldn't be the most promising of candidates, on paper, would he!!!

[Cussypat1974]

PMSL! When I was a child, we had a cat called Patch. When she got old, she stopped going outside entirely and lived on a chair in the kitchen, beside the Stanley stove. The first litter box ever was bought for her then, as she started to wee and poop in my uncles work boots! She got the nickname wee-in-boots after that lol!
Pug wash is a beauty..... Very like my Big Grey (RIP -slurry tank disaster). Sometimes ordinary moggies can produce kittens that are exactly like pure breeds. Who knows what ancestry there is eh? My dog, Poppy, is a PERFECT example of a purebred JRT, but her mother was a black, curly little thing! When I took her to puppy classes all those years ago, another woman told me I should get her registered with the kennel club, and get her papers. "why would I do that?" I asked. "sure I don't have papers myself and I am not a purebred, so I don't see why the dog needs to be!"

[bobbys girl]

She got the nickname wee-in-boots after that lol!

Poppy, is a PERFECT example of a purebred JRT, but her mother was a black, curly little thing!

That's the thing about 'Jacks', they come in all shapes and sizes>

[Crewella]

""wee-in-boots"!!

[Cussypat1974]

Lol, she was a great cat. One half of her face was black, the other white. She had to have her white ear off due to cancer, but lived a long time after that, in the kitchen. Then one day, she got up, went outside, lay under a bush and died! The Yorkshire terrier Molly alerted us by sitting beside her and howling...... They always seemed to hate each other, and Patch would swipe the poor dog every time she passed her chair, but I suppose they had their own understanding and friendship eh?

[Crewella]

They do indeed, I've had the same thing happen here when I've lost a cat and the one of the gang that seemed to miss them the most was one that I thought didn't get on with them!