Friday text-only cat-blogging

I have three yellow tiger/tabby cats in my herd. Recently, I noticed one of them, a longhair who got very sick as a kitten and pulled through, but never has been really healthy since then, had developed some small black spots on his lips and his nose. I figured it was one more aspect of his difficult youth and didn't take any action, deciding to just watch him and see if there was any change. The spots stayed, but didn't grow. A couple of months later, I noticed that my big yellow tom had developed similar spots in similar locations, and shortly after that, my baby, my favorite, my most beloved animal and best friend, my little golden Katie, had acquired the same spots.

Panicked and flagellating myself as hard as I could for not acting sooner, I rushed my baby girl to my vet (who I drive seventy-five miles to see because he takes such good care of my extended feline family) to see how long she, and her two spotted-lipped brothers had to live, and if there was anything I could do to save them from this horrible disease that seemed to be spreading rapidly through my little pride.

The vet gave Katie a thorough check-up and gave me the hideous and heartbreaking news. The dreaded, disfiguring black spots on the kids' lips and noses were...



...freckles.


Apparently, yellow cats have a common propensity to develop dark pigmented spots on their nose and their lips as they age. The spots can grow and shrink, can disappear and return, and are no more of a health hazard than the average freckle on a human.

My dear little Katie and her brothers are just fine.