The secret of your cat’s colour

White: they look so elegant, but white cats have a sad secret. The same gene that makes them white, leaves one in every five of these cats deaf. It’s worse for blue-eyed white cats, where over 60% inherit deafness. So, those celebrity white-furred blue-eyed cats you see in the commercials aren’t only selected for their looks, but also on their ability to hear.

Black: an omen of good luck or bad luck? It all depends on the culture and the country.
Take Sable, a large black cat from Richland, Washington in the USA, he was so trusted, he was awarded for his safety patrol work for helping students cross the street. The only black cat owners who are unlucky are those with a severe allergy. Scientific research has shown that black cats trigger allergies more than their colourful tabby relatives.

Red: Crookshanks from the Harry Potter movies and Garfield from the comics are both red tabbies! They’re also commonly called orange, ginger, or marmalade. Tabbies can be any colour, if they have faint dark stripes on their coats. These markings help them blend in with brush and grass, ready to pounce on their prey.

Tortoiseshell: a swirl of black, red, and maybe even white. They are almost always female because cats carry the colour gene in their X chromosome, and females have two of them. Males have only one X chromosome, which means they can be red or black, but not both. For example, in England, only two or three male tortoiseshell cats are born each year.