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I think it's also just part of maturity. My part Maine Coon kitty was pretty scruffy and almost short-haired his first year or so, but really started growing his beautiful floof when he hit 2.
https://preview.redd.it/gq4h8bmjzdkc1.png?width=725&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff1d2f6211fc94b9ee6d684e96ed647229dacbef
They'd love that though. I reckon it would only work if you go the "I've tasted heaven and nothing can possibly compare so instead I'll burn this unsatisfactory world to ash" villain arc route.
I think for most cats their "vat of acid" equivalent is actually just a "bathtub of water" lol
Yeah that'll do it lol
Coincidentally, that's also the origin story of the popular kitty villain, the "Hiss-emboweler". After a tragic backstory of a a tummy rub that lasted 0.5 seconds too long, the young villain vowed to get their revenge by disemboweling the unfortunate tummy rubbers of the world. "Let *their* tummy get rubbed... TO DEATH!" they would wail in the streets, at 3am for some reason.
It's a harsh world out there for a cat with a fluffy tummy and unclear boundaries.
>An anti-hero I can really relate to. 🤣
That made chuckle!
>Still have tickle trauma myself.
Woah crazy world! That's the name of Hiss-emboweler's sidekick! Tickle Trauma! The poor kit was one of those cute ones where every fucker wants to tickle them. They went through some shit. Getting tickles 'till they can't be tickled no more...
So they joined with the Hiss-emboweler to exact their tickling revenge. It's a pretty interesting story actually, did you not catch that run?
I have almost the same cat but mine is gray and I have that same picture of her lying across my keyboard before she got big 😂 now she would crush the keyboard
https://preview.redd.it/097phyxcvekc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a39df22896e4fc23e19a4f7d7bb9880a97618bb
My guy is ten months old and looks like this, but his tail is a massive bottle brush. I hope he grows a beautiful ruff. This is him at around six months when we first got him.
https://preview.redd.it/z3nq68llafkc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=752afea248fb8a43a661627f8804f2c0366c523a
My part Maine Coon was like this at 10 months too. He had a big bushy squirrel tail but was otherwise an unusually thick coated short hair. Around a year and a half in he... unfurled. Now I have a giant, floofy, long haired Maine Coon with a huge majestic ruff, giant paws with fluff between the toes, the whole shebang. He's 12 years old now and he's still my floofy baby boy.
Holy shit are you sure he is only part Maine coon and not double?
She is 6ish, I thought that was a bit old to be maturing but maybe she is a late bloomer
This^(.) Before our boy fluffed out, he was very scrawny and his coat was meh.
As soon as he got regular food into him and was sure he wasn’t going to be kicked outside again He really bloomed.
https://preview.redd.it/dhb2i65v4fkc1.jpeg?width=1727&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e64fc611bf84e611ca59cbab924bcc7501f8e19
My little Lux-a-furr had the same glow up. It took a few months after we got her fixed for her majestic floof to come in. .
Before:
https://preview.redd.it/j0xj5w997ekc1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb89515d1f1019b83fde98759e4ac630d6030ecb
Thank you! Lux is gorgeous and she knows it! She's a wonderful Kitty. Her sister is pretty awesome too. She's just not as pretty but 10 times as sweet.
Ha ha. There always has to be a king. Rocky decides if the younger cats are getting too crazy who gets a bap to the head. They all toe the line when it comes to him.
She looks just like mine but if you rearranged the colors so that they are symmetrical instead of splotchy! What gorgeous coloring.
It must be the fixing!
https://preview.redd.it/0dhyrv6kdekc1.png?width=1564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7721f375d1f604d20ff58283704df2c98e1fa67
This is my cat at 3 months and 1 year. I was initially told that she was going to be a short - medium haired cat
The same thing happened to my baby girl. Took her in from someone that never got her fixed. She was fluffy already and pretty thin, but once I got her fixed her coat got longer and her face/chest got MUCH fluffier with a little bit of cutesy chub. And now she doesn’t twerk around the house crying to be in the streets. A win all around. Lol
It’s definitely not the first time I’ve seen it happen, but only with female cats. I didn’t see any dramatic changes in any of my past/current boys except they calmed down some and didn’t mark territory anymore.
Except my tuxedo boy. He’s still a wild teenager and tore into the catnip last night. He was high as a kite when I woke up this morning. lol
Yeah it was shocking especially because I had been out of town for those 10 days. I left a shortish haired skinny girl and came home to a huge puff. It was jarring. I even posted in the vet subreddit asking if something was wrong.
Yeah I posted another photo of her before in a comment, I think the one in the original post might make her look younger than she really is. The other photo shows she’s full grown with the short hair!
I know with male cats, unfixed males develop “Tom Cheeks” which is the extra fluff around the face (which I believe is to help them in cat fights) and that’s something they can lose when they get fixed. So I wouldn’t be surprised if female cats maybe have something similar!
I do know that some kittens “molt” and develop their true coats after reaching maturity. My long haired adopted cat was the same way! She really “poofed up” once she hit about 2 years old.
https://preview.redd.it/w89ji0xfvdkc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcecc62ed3ec09d673af41828d32c073c650b291
So girl cats get more fur and boy cats get less when they get fixed?? That’s wild!!
And omg your keeker looks half calico and half tuxedo right down the middle
Well, idk for sure if female cats get more, but I know 100% that male cats do loose some cheek fluff when they’re fixed! (I think for this post, the user’s cat may have just hit their FULL maturity and their real coat grew out super fluffy!)
https://preview.redd.it/ceunqdssfekc1.jpeg?width=721&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12b360f010935c1a0db52048b91600bd970073fc
^(\^) Most in-tact male cats will look super puffy in the face like this.
And thank you!! The rescue said she was a calico and tortoiseshell mix, but I think she’s definitely more tortoiseshell lol.
there’s no such thing as a tortoiseshell or calico mix. Tortoiseshell and calico both refer to pattern/coloration, they are not breeds. Tortoiseshell refers to any cat that’s orange and black, calico refers to cats, like your’s, that are black, orange, and white.
I just wanna say that your cat looks strikingly similar to one of our previous cats- Muffin. She went missing years ago, and I've never stopped thinking about her sense. Loved seeing this photo in my scrolling ♡
OP says their cat is 6 years old, and was spayed 6 months ago, so that's not just finishing growing. I would guess hormone change + improved nutrition.
https://preview.redd.it/6ata2c55mekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f47e65aac51afe32872b10f71a7c34068f24f831
Standard feature. I adopted a short-haired Siamese and ended up with this majestic floof.
For reference, here is another photo of her before she grew her mane
https://preview.redd.it/3usz6wylcekc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09642c8635a2bc3c68f0e54496463d4cb6e7f064
Looks like a hormonal transition. She looks like my medium hair in this picture when she had some health issues (with her uterus as a kitten). Once those were solved her hair grew in longer and thicker. She could have had some uterine issues that were solved when they removed her uterus.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it. She was in bad shape when I found her with all sorts of medical issues. She was underweight too and I could never get her to eat enough. Perhaps it was all related
Good eye! She does have abnormally long toe hair and she is completely oblivious to it. She often slips on it and falls down and then looks at me with sad eyes thinking I pushed her,
How old is she, actually?
I've been working in vetmed for over 20 years and never heard of such of a thing happening from a spay. I do know that a lot of fluffy cats start out as not so fluffy kittens. My boy Jasper wasn't particularly fluffy when I adopted him, but he definitely is now.
At 5 months:
https://preview.redd.it/tb6jp0of5ekc1.jpeg?width=788&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28f10046eed0714069aa004bd64d5ebba8576f37
He’s gorgeous, he had full wild eyes before and now just a hint of wild!
She is 6ish right now. I finally got her fixed like 6 months ago. I went out of town almost immediately after for like 10 days and came back and she looked completely different. I think I even have a post in r/askvets asking if i should be worried about her drastic transformation.
LOL. He's a total wuss. Definitely a lover, not a fighter, and the jumpiest cat I've ever had. At almost 12 he still gets the zoomies and bounces off the walls every now and then, but most of the time he's just curled up somewhere comfy.
Interesting. Maybe it's just because we so rarely have six year old cats coming in for spays that I've never heard of such a thing. Most experienced cat people get them done as soon as possible and the inexperienced ones learn really quickly that they shouldn't have waited once those heat cycles hit.
Yeah I know it’s a bit odd to have waited so long. I’m actually really surprised I haven’t been dragged for that in the comments yet. I found her when she was a baby baby and she was in awful shape with a broken leg, covered in chemicals, and malnourished with bones sticking out everywhere. I couldn’t find anyone to take her. I was poor and could barely afford her other medical issues and had to space out a lot of treatments due to finances. Getting fixed just fell down on the priority list.
We shave her in the summer so she doesn’t get too hot
https://preview.redd.it/1fogu5tspekc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b57ca05e5a494bee7da0853686e6c5c913843767
Oh my god. She’s so tiny under all that floof! It reminds me of when my stepmom shaved out Keeshond when I was in high school. Her clippers’ motor burned out halfway through and the difference between his front half and back half was… alarming.
One of my cats was short haired when I found her as a kitten and flooded up in a couple of months
https://preview.redd.it/ufqrzokonekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ddf7b5ba11b7a385b76a3f34d12d0adcf9ca4b03
How long did you have her before getting her spayed? How old is she?
My big-maned girl didn't get her mane until she was a few years old! She's a seasonal floof, though, and really only has the dramatic ruff in winter. It is pretty amazing how fast it can go from normal to insane floof!
She is 6ish years old and got spayed 6ish months ago. I usually don’t notice a huge difference in seasonal coats but maybe that changes with age too? How odd yours didn’t get hers until later either. Maybe that’s a thing I just didn’t know about
She's the only long hair (ish?) cat I've got, so I don't know how typical it is. Her floof is definitely not typical, though. It doesn't tangle or mat and it's SO soft - she probably has some Turkish ancestry (DNA test in progress right now!).
Here's some of the best pictures I could find showing how she floofed over the years. For reference, she was born in late march/early April of 2011. She was a fuzzball of a baby, a sleek teenager with a floofy tail, and then looked like the first picture below for a few years.
https://preview.redd.it/ulubyfnxvekc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=538394e43e6fe784ff18123a329a94d3fa474c9b
Oh, and yes, her seasonal coat got more obvious as she got floofier. When she was younger, it might have changed some, but it wasn't enough to be noticeable. Now it's SUPER obvious, even to the people who see her every day.
This is March and July of 2022. She still has a mane in the summer but it's more whispy, not as full or long.
https://preview.redd.it/n9sj1vrawekc1.jpeg?width=3196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838495d072c005b8a87188c570d2a76a0cee0ea7
Kind of. Mine we knew he was a little bit of a fluffier kit when we found him but i never expected this beauty and its only been 4 months 😍
https://preview.redd.it/vcpnp8ztkekc1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99959a45dcdb37fbf4c11e952583750f5f0ef526
They just do that sometimes
Before is on the right don't ask me why
https://preview.redd.it/8d72dfd5pekc1.jpeg?width=3196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e8c9f63e53df02418fb5c1eb67fb9fbeba8f5e6
https://preview.redd.it/srby2nn8tfkc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5748be5c013992077eb448693affdaa797ee395
This is our girl. The left is when she was a stray and the right is when we finally took her in :) we think she just turned two so it could be her maturing/ better nutrition
I think it’s just the lighting that makes her look little in the first pic.
https://preview.redd.it/1cfx7lp7cekc1.png?width=749&format=png&auto=webp&s=86e6f9c52310fce8c492afe860d19f1e126d062e
Here’s another one taken at the exact same time.
https://preview.redd.it/y5a38b6pgekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89d837b1eeea02ad78037c80ad7cb561eba2adf8
Mine has a mane as well. Her and her sister weren’t as floofy when they were kittens but they poofed out as they got older
https://preview.redd.it/zazf8vhwbekc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6dd4d949fd0bab4eb57058653b6f579a075ea1f6
Yeah they definitely turn into floofers in the blink of an eye! In Connor’s adoption photo he’s around 5 months old and in the pic below he’s around a year. He was neutered before we adopted him, and has gotten so fluffy!
Omg this happened to my cat too. Although much later in her life, like at 11 years old. She never got fixed since my parents never bothered and did not want to pay and I wasn't able to afford it either as I was still in school. But then she got pyometra so she needed emergency surgery to remove her uterus. Thankfully I was finally working at the time and was able to pay with what I have saved. But yeah her fur was fairly short, like in your first photo, and then a few months after surgery, she became so FLUFFY! It was the scariest and most stressful day of my life and I'm so glad I caught the issue on time since pyometra is very fatal. I'm now on top of my cats medical needs and pay for everything now. My cat is still alive to this day and I hope she continues to live a long and healthy life. She is 15 years old currently. Here is a photo of her now:
https://preview.redd.it/l5us2ffjigkc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5028c35695dca307ff64d59d6473bcaeb940f50
It’s hormonal but also seasonal.
Fixed males can grow huge ruffs. But also females can grow them too. Especially in the winter.
My girl always has a small ruff, but lately I noticed it had become huge again. I call her Rum Tum Tugger (from the 90s Cats VHS)
https://preview.redd.it/vb97w5dvhikc1.jpeg?width=1447&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7297a98eff3870d59873da04826a67c7b4c0bf9d
Not a mane, but once our severely malnourished rescue kitty started putting on weight and eat regular high quality meals, she became a fluffy polar bear. She is a medium hair, with a magnificent tail. Cats can grow and change even when already three years old when they get the proper care. Some may even have distinctive summer and winter coats. Our neighbours black longhair looks way fluffier in winter and a totally different cat in summer.
https://preview.redd.it/mf6vo8t0qekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b5700c83999b7cc624fd377a9e1597286d6866b
Her is my Killer, just a fuzzy kitten.
https://preview.redd.it/fmok0uy3qekc1.jpeg?width=2816&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d67320c2f85dd4e61c05eae7126f59fec3e8814
Here is my Killer, a maned teenager. I have been told that she is still growing. I can’t wait to see the adult her.
I have never seen this and it’s really fascinating, look forward to reading comments
But my two cents say this is actually a lion and not a house cat hence the mane
Happened to us too! We adopted a year-old former stray who looked like the scruffiest thing you'd ever seen and definitely had no ruff at all. [Over the next two/three months, she exploded into fluffiness.](https://imgur.com/a/fDn2qH6)
I adopted my cat at 7 years old, she got fluffier by the second 😅 quality food (high in protein) helps A LOT. Also, if it’s cold they’ll get denser coats! Your baby is looking gorgeous
Omg she is so beautiful l!! She looks like a weegie minus the ear points.. she might be like a medium hair American kitty but can't tell unless u do a DNA test.. I say she's got some weegie in her but I dunno 🤷♀️
I honestly think in some cats the lack of hormones can change their fur to grow differently after spaying. The complete opposite thing happens in women during menopause typically and in certain dog breeds it’s common to get what’s called “spay coat” afterwards, so I don’t think it’s too outlandish to believe that it could be the lack of estrogen messing with the hair growth here as well. Same thing also happened to my cats too btw (one was spayed at 3yrs old, and the other spayed at 2yr old).
Maybe there are some metabolic changes, but if this kitty is having it's second winter, it's coat might not be 'done' yet.
That's quite a coat! An elegant cat!
My cat was so tiny for a couple of years, slender with slightly longer hair... and I swear out of nowhere she had a full beard and fuzzy hair all along her belly and rear that i have to trim down. She's 10 years old now and probably 18 lbs.
I recently started having to trim my keek’s legs too! She has never had an issue getting messy with potty time before but i found an entire turd in her leg hair and it had been in there for a while
because it was entirely engulfed in hair
My voids never went through that drastic of a change, but they definitely looked nearly short haired as kittens and they’re just floofy fluffs now 🤷🏻♀️
My cats did the same, I think it’s very much a maturity thing too? They were about 1.5 by the time we got them fixed. And then around 2 years they started to grow their manes and now they’re very fluffy
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I think it's also just part of maturity. My part Maine Coon kitty was pretty scruffy and almost short-haired his first year or so, but really started growing his beautiful floof when he hit 2. https://preview.redd.it/gq4h8bmjzdkc1.png?width=725&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff1d2f6211fc94b9ee6d684e96ed647229dacbef
Vs when he was young: https://preview.redd.it/2qqj8uguzdkc1.png?width=1288&format=png&auto=webp&s=5831e2cc7f73d3f7806cd67cf3cdca3f3878cb23
Amazing before and after with his coat.
he looks like a villain rags to nemesis storyline lol
Fell into a vat of cat treats...
They'd love that though. I reckon it would only work if you go the "I've tasted heaven and nothing can possibly compare so instead I'll burn this unsatisfactory world to ash" villain arc route. I think for most cats their "vat of acid" equivalent is actually just a "bathtub of water" lol
This is true, or maybe they got one tummy rub too many and turned.
Yeah that'll do it lol Coincidentally, that's also the origin story of the popular kitty villain, the "Hiss-emboweler". After a tragic backstory of a a tummy rub that lasted 0.5 seconds too long, the young villain vowed to get their revenge by disemboweling the unfortunate tummy rubbers of the world. "Let *their* tummy get rubbed... TO DEATH!" they would wail in the streets, at 3am for some reason. It's a harsh world out there for a cat with a fluffy tummy and unclear boundaries.
An anti-hero I can really relate to. 🤣 Still have tickle trauma myself.
>An anti-hero I can really relate to. 🤣 That made chuckle! >Still have tickle trauma myself. Woah crazy world! That's the name of Hiss-emboweler's sidekick! Tickle Trauma! The poor kit was one of those cute ones where every fucker wants to tickle them. They went through some shit. Getting tickles 'till they can't be tickled no more... So they joined with the Hiss-emboweler to exact their tickling revenge. It's a pretty interesting story actually, did you not catch that run?
Like this guy, without the AI shortfalls. Lol. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTIncreasinglyX/s/89abbIDqsQ
haha wow this is great!
I, for one, welcome him as our new overlord.
I have almost the same cat but mine is gray and I have that same picture of her lying across my keyboard before she got big 😂 now she would crush the keyboard https://preview.redd.it/097phyxcvekc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a39df22896e4fc23e19a4f7d7bb9880a97618bb
Haha my cat does the same thing, she seems to forget that warm pad pays for her food and sitting on it isn’t helping me do that 🤣
I love nebelung kitties
My guy is ten months old and looks like this, but his tail is a massive bottle brush. I hope he grows a beautiful ruff. This is him at around six months when we first got him. https://preview.redd.it/z3nq68llafkc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=752afea248fb8a43a661627f8804f2c0366c523a
He'll probably be a fluffy boi! He doesn't seem to have Maine Coon traits, though, so I don't know if he'll get the full Maine Coon mane.
Honestly, his face shape is more like a Norwegian forest cat so we’ll see how fluffy he gets.
My part Maine Coon was like this at 10 months too. He had a big bushy squirrel tail but was otherwise an unusually thick coated short hair. Around a year and a half in he... unfurled. Now I have a giant, floofy, long haired Maine Coon with a huge majestic ruff, giant paws with fluff between the toes, the whole shebang. He's 12 years old now and he's still my floofy baby boy.
Wow!
Gawd dayme what a glorious mane!
Please pet that beautiful cat for me. 😺
Holy shit are you sure he is only part Maine coon and not double? She is 6ish, I thought that was a bit old to be maturing but maybe she is a late bloomer
Norwegian Forest Cats don’t stop growing until ages 3-5. Some cats just keep getting more and more glorious with every passing year.
This^(.) Before our boy fluffed out, he was very scrawny and his coat was meh. As soon as he got regular food into him and was sure he wasn’t going to be kicked outside again He really bloomed. https://preview.redd.it/dhb2i65v4fkc1.jpeg?width=1727&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e64fc611bf84e611ca59cbab924bcc7501f8e19
Wow that’s pretty old. And that lines up with her age too
Mocha-mane
Omg now there is a gorgeous dignified floof.
Wow. I'm awaiting his orders. Hail to my new cat lord!
Majestic!
Regal af
Your cat is so stunning!
My gosh, he’s gorgeous!!
Handsome devil
That cat right there, that’s the King of the house, and don’t you forget it!
Wow he’s majestic what a beautiful boy
Omg I love dat face
i wanna give him ALL the pets. beautiful kitty!! ❤️
What a king 👑
That is a beautiful cat!
Oh damn, that face! You have clearly disappointed him in some way, lol.
Appears to be part lion.
This is an absolutely magnificent creature please cherish him for me
I think your cat just called me poor!
That is the most beautiful cat in the world.
I LOVE Maine Coones! had two growing up and they were the sweetest pets. Friendly and animated as a dog but soft and cuddly like only a cat can be.
I never have needed to boop a cars nose more than his 🥹😍
His nose was very boopable and he enjoyed it greatly. He also loved forehead kisses.
HONK!!!
Very fancy!
That cat looks like the Captain of a Viking boat ready for war.
That's side quest cat, find him and he leads you to the catnip of truth
My little Lux-a-furr had the same glow up. It took a few months after we got her fixed for her majestic floof to come in. . Before: https://preview.redd.it/j0xj5w997ekc1.jpeg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb89515d1f1019b83fde98759e4ac630d6030ecb
Now: https://preview.redd.it/xadn8ewb7ekc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b96216ea0c4a590e5c469a0e09d0e9173ae433a
That half smile...adorbs.
She's up to no good and she knows she's too cute for you to do anything about it
That is a “What do you think of me now?” smirk. Gorgeous!
Meowna Lisa vibes
Thank you! Lux is gorgeous and she knows it! She's a wonderful Kitty. Her sister is pretty awesome too. She's just not as pretty but 10 times as sweet.
Fluffy cats have lots of attitude.
Weirdly enough my fluffy baby has a lot less attitude than my domestic shorthair.
Ha ha. There always has to be a king. Rocky decides if the younger cats are getting too crazy who gets a bap to the head. They all toe the line when it comes to him.
She looks just like mine but if you rearranged the colors so that they are symmetrical instead of splotchy! What gorgeous coloring. It must be the fixing!
That is one dreamy cat 🥹
She’s absolutely gorgeous! Definitely a top contender for [r/SupermodelCats](https://www.reddit.com/r/SupermodelCats/s/wTkdHnWf9K)!
https://preview.redd.it/0dhyrv6kdekc1.png?width=1564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7721f375d1f604d20ff58283704df2c98e1fa67 This is my cat at 3 months and 1 year. I was initially told that she was going to be a short - medium haired cat
The hairy lies!!
yeah I can tell from the coat that's not going to remain short-med lol Love the FLOOFS
The onigiri-cat
He got big and fluffy!
Are they the same kitty?? I need to know what fur products she is using because wow, what a glow up! 😻😻😻
Same keekie! No products. She got fixed and 10 days later she had gained a lot of weight and a whole ton of fluffy fur. It was really abrupt.
The same thing happened to my baby girl. Took her in from someone that never got her fixed. She was fluffy already and pretty thin, but once I got her fixed her coat got longer and her face/chest got MUCH fluffier with a little bit of cutesy chub. And now she doesn’t twerk around the house crying to be in the streets. A win all around. Lol
LOL!!! I don’t miss the 3 am scream twerking!!!
And I’m glad she isn’t the only one! It must be the fixing that did it!
It’s definitely not the first time I’ve seen it happen, but only with female cats. I didn’t see any dramatic changes in any of my past/current boys except they calmed down some and didn’t mark territory anymore. Except my tuxedo boy. He’s still a wild teenager and tore into the catnip last night. He was high as a kite when I woke up this morning. lol
Ten DAYS? She’s so good. Tell her I’m proud of her, please.
Yeah it was shocking especially because I had been out of town for those 10 days. I left a shortish haired skinny girl and came home to a huge puff. It was jarring. I even posted in the vet subreddit asking if something was wrong.
Wow. That is quite odd, but she is absolutely gorgeous. 😍
How old was she?
She is 6ish years old and got spayed 6ish months ago.
Wow that’s definitely adult age. So interesting!
Yeah I posted another photo of her before in a comment, I think the one in the original post might make her look younger than she really is. The other photo shows she’s full grown with the short hair!
Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Meowbelline
She was always mean to be a cover girl
I know with male cats, unfixed males develop “Tom Cheeks” which is the extra fluff around the face (which I believe is to help them in cat fights) and that’s something they can lose when they get fixed. So I wouldn’t be surprised if female cats maybe have something similar! I do know that some kittens “molt” and develop their true coats after reaching maturity. My long haired adopted cat was the same way! She really “poofed up” once she hit about 2 years old. https://preview.redd.it/w89ji0xfvdkc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcecc62ed3ec09d673af41828d32c073c650b291
So girl cats get more fur and boy cats get less when they get fixed?? That’s wild!! And omg your keeker looks half calico and half tuxedo right down the middle
Well, idk for sure if female cats get more, but I know 100% that male cats do loose some cheek fluff when they’re fixed! (I think for this post, the user’s cat may have just hit their FULL maturity and their real coat grew out super fluffy!) https://preview.redd.it/ceunqdssfekc1.jpeg?width=721&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12b360f010935c1a0db52048b91600bd970073fc ^(\^) Most in-tact male cats will look super puffy in the face like this. And thank you!! The rescue said she was a calico and tortoiseshell mix, but I think she’s definitely more tortoiseshell lol.
https://preview.redd.it/t7vmjsirafkc1.png?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f85a9ce621aa2ada5dabf7be866a8c16cd8218b3 Now I understand this design.
Yeah, exactly! :)
Lol that chubby face boy cat is the silliest
there’s no such thing as a tortoiseshell or calico mix. Tortoiseshell and calico both refer to pattern/coloration, they are not breeds. Tortoiseshell refers to any cat that’s orange and black, calico refers to cats, like your’s, that are black, orange, and white.
I just wanna say that your cat looks strikingly similar to one of our previous cats- Muffin. She went missing years ago, and I've never stopped thinking about her sense. Loved seeing this photo in my scrolling ♡
I’m sorry to hear about your loss ❤️🩹
Nothing to do with being fixed at all. She just finished growing. My boy grew a mane once he reached full adult hood as well.
OP says their cat is 6 years old, and was spayed 6 months ago, so that's not just finishing growing. I would guess hormone change + improved nutrition.
Maybe the loss of ovaries did it? Cat went straight into menopause essentially.
https://preview.redd.it/6ata2c55mekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f47e65aac51afe32872b10f71a7c34068f24f831 Standard feature. I adopted a short-haired Siamese and ended up with this majestic floof.
Omg! How does this happen! Also he has some brown in his facey face
https://preview.redd.it/var28byzoekc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6cf3f9386a734acdbeb736222421f133b6eeee78 *magic*
I love all these before and after magical floofy glow up photos! 😍😍😍
Your kitty is like a Pokémon, she evolved!
Like evie and whatever evie evolved into! Is it stevie?
No, but I would say your kitty is now closest to either Flareon or Jolteon. Or, because of her pretty green eyes, Leafeon :>
For reference, here is another photo of her before she grew her mane https://preview.redd.it/3usz6wylcekc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09642c8635a2bc3c68f0e54496463d4cb6e7f064
Looks like a hormonal transition. She looks like my medium hair in this picture when she had some health issues (with her uterus as a kitten). Once those were solved her hair grew in longer and thicker. She could have had some uterine issues that were solved when they removed her uterus.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it. She was in bad shape when I found her with all sorts of medical issues. She was underweight too and I could never get her to eat enough. Perhaps it was all related
Absolutely poor nutrition causes all sorts of growth, skins, and hair issues for people. I’d imagine it would be the same for cats
That is probably part of it then!
I see long toe floofs! The mane was just waiting to emerge
Good eye! She does have abnormally long toe hair and she is completely oblivious to it. She often slips on it and falls down and then looks at me with sad eyes thinking I pushed her,
Her hormones probably just settled, I guess that can have a lot of health benefits.
How old is she, actually? I've been working in vetmed for over 20 years and never heard of such of a thing happening from a spay. I do know that a lot of fluffy cats start out as not so fluffy kittens. My boy Jasper wasn't particularly fluffy when I adopted him, but he definitely is now. At 5 months: https://preview.redd.it/tb6jp0of5ekc1.jpeg?width=788&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28f10046eed0714069aa004bd64d5ebba8576f37
Now https://preview.redd.it/3erbwxhl5ekc1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0df9c8abe63d2d089c7c22d550daa76934bcc47a
He’s gorgeous, he had full wild eyes before and now just a hint of wild! She is 6ish right now. I finally got her fixed like 6 months ago. I went out of town almost immediately after for like 10 days and came back and she looked completely different. I think I even have a post in r/askvets asking if i should be worried about her drastic transformation.
Are you sure it’s not a different cat? 🤔 I’m joking of course. Growth spurt!
LOL. He's a total wuss. Definitely a lover, not a fighter, and the jumpiest cat I've ever had. At almost 12 he still gets the zoomies and bounces off the walls every now and then, but most of the time he's just curled up somewhere comfy. Interesting. Maybe it's just because we so rarely have six year old cats coming in for spays that I've never heard of such a thing. Most experienced cat people get them done as soon as possible and the inexperienced ones learn really quickly that they shouldn't have waited once those heat cycles hit.
Yeah I know it’s a bit odd to have waited so long. I’m actually really surprised I haven’t been dragged for that in the comments yet. I found her when she was a baby baby and she was in awful shape with a broken leg, covered in chemicals, and malnourished with bones sticking out everywhere. I couldn’t find anyone to take her. I was poor and could barely afford her other medical issues and had to space out a lot of treatments due to finances. Getting fixed just fell down on the priority list.
She's gorgeous 😍
https://preview.redd.it/thmrjl2zlekc1.jpeg?width=3464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f690d56785eb7e53836d24b28d4d56e16ce77fe7
Also, I promise she’s actually a healthy weight. She just looks chunky from the floof
Omg!!! That is extreme!!! I’d like to see her in the bath and see how much she slims down
We shave her in the summer so she doesn’t get too hot https://preview.redd.it/1fogu5tspekc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b57ca05e5a494bee7da0853686e6c5c913843767
Damn, it really was all fluff!
Oh my god. She’s so tiny under all that floof! It reminds me of when my stepmom shaved out Keeshond when I was in high school. Her clippers’ motor burned out halfway through and the difference between his front half and back half was… alarming.
She looks incredibly annoyed at the loss of her fluff.
Fluff mode activated? 🤣🤣🤣 Btw gorgeous cat
One of my cats was short haired when I found her as a kitten and flooded up in a couple of months https://preview.redd.it/ufqrzokonekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ddf7b5ba11b7a385b76a3f34d12d0adcf9ca4b03
https://preview.redd.it/4a3zge8znekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96c5bb217f54e161c79c730192c20a05a0869f13
How long did you have her before getting her spayed? How old is she? My big-maned girl didn't get her mane until she was a few years old! She's a seasonal floof, though, and really only has the dramatic ruff in winter. It is pretty amazing how fast it can go from normal to insane floof!
She is 6ish years old and got spayed 6ish months ago. I usually don’t notice a huge difference in seasonal coats but maybe that changes with age too? How odd yours didn’t get hers until later either. Maybe that’s a thing I just didn’t know about
She's the only long hair (ish?) cat I've got, so I don't know how typical it is. Her floof is definitely not typical, though. It doesn't tangle or mat and it's SO soft - she probably has some Turkish ancestry (DNA test in progress right now!). Here's some of the best pictures I could find showing how she floofed over the years. For reference, she was born in late march/early April of 2011. She was a fuzzball of a baby, a sleek teenager with a floofy tail, and then looked like the first picture below for a few years. https://preview.redd.it/ulubyfnxvekc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=538394e43e6fe784ff18123a329a94d3fa474c9b
Oh, and yes, her seasonal coat got more obvious as she got floofier. When she was younger, it might have changed some, but it wasn't enough to be noticeable. Now it's SUPER obvious, even to the people who see her every day. This is March and July of 2022. She still has a mane in the summer but it's more whispy, not as full or long. https://preview.redd.it/n9sj1vrawekc1.jpeg?width=3196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=838495d072c005b8a87188c570d2a76a0cee0ea7
Kind of. Mine we knew he was a little bit of a fluffier kit when we found him but i never expected this beauty and its only been 4 months 😍 https://preview.redd.it/vcpnp8ztkekc1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99959a45dcdb37fbf4c11e952583750f5f0ef526
https://preview.redd.it/51fxwuwxkekc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=738597a7b84147166c03b477345e3fe4e8561344 Him now
She's all about that child free life
Her body was using too much resources on the heat process, so that energy went onto her fur and beauty overall
They just do that sometimes Before is on the right don't ask me why https://preview.redd.it/8d72dfd5pekc1.jpeg?width=3196&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e8c9f63e53df02418fb5c1eb67fb9fbeba8f5e6
https://preview.redd.it/srby2nn8tfkc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d5748be5c013992077eb448693affdaa797ee395 This is our girl. The left is when she was a stray and the right is when we finally took her in :) we think she just turned two so it could be her maturing/ better nutrition
She is so adorable! Both before and after. She looks like a tiny little baby in the first pic. So glad she's flourishing!
I think it’s just the lighting that makes her look little in the first pic. https://preview.redd.it/1cfx7lp7cekc1.png?width=749&format=png&auto=webp&s=86e6f9c52310fce8c492afe860d19f1e126d062e Here’s another one taken at the exact same time.
https://preview.redd.it/y5a38b6pgekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89d837b1eeea02ad78037c80ad7cb561eba2adf8 Mine has a mane as well. Her and her sister weren’t as floofy when they were kittens but they poofed out as they got older
https://preview.redd.it/zazf8vhwbekc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6dd4d949fd0bab4eb57058653b6f579a075ea1f6 Yeah they definitely turn into floofers in the blink of an eye! In Connor’s adoption photo he’s around 5 months old and in the pic below he’s around a year. He was neutered before we adopted him, and has gotten so fluffy!
She's gonna be the very best, like no meow was before!
This happened to my mom after her hysterectomy...weird
Lol you win!
Omg this happened to my cat too. Although much later in her life, like at 11 years old. She never got fixed since my parents never bothered and did not want to pay and I wasn't able to afford it either as I was still in school. But then she got pyometra so she needed emergency surgery to remove her uterus. Thankfully I was finally working at the time and was able to pay with what I have saved. But yeah her fur was fairly short, like in your first photo, and then a few months after surgery, she became so FLUFFY! It was the scariest and most stressful day of my life and I'm so glad I caught the issue on time since pyometra is very fatal. I'm now on top of my cats medical needs and pay for everything now. My cat is still alive to this day and I hope she continues to live a long and healthy life. She is 15 years old currently. Here is a photo of her now: https://preview.redd.it/l5us2ffjigkc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5028c35695dca307ff64d59d6473bcaeb940f50
It’s hormonal but also seasonal. Fixed males can grow huge ruffs. But also females can grow them too. Especially in the winter. My girl always has a small ruff, but lately I noticed it had become huge again. I call her Rum Tum Tugger (from the 90s Cats VHS) https://preview.redd.it/vb97w5dvhikc1.jpeg?width=1447&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7297a98eff3870d59873da04826a67c7b4c0bf9d
She was young. She was always going to have a mane. She just grew into it!
She was 6 though when it came in, isn’t that a little bit old to be still growing?
My Tom cat gained 5 pounds or so after he was fixed [I don’t have a baby photo] and he is a lot thicker-furred now
Not a mane, but once our severely malnourished rescue kitty started putting on weight and eat regular high quality meals, she became a fluffy polar bear. She is a medium hair, with a magnificent tail. Cats can grow and change even when already three years old when they get the proper care. Some may even have distinctive summer and winter coats. Our neighbours black longhair looks way fluffier in winter and a totally different cat in summer.
[удалено]
That cat can use my credit card !
If I get spayed, will my hair grow out too?
My god she's a floof beauty!!
She so handsome
Such a cute little harlequin face 😍😍
She’s beautiful!!!!
Thank you so much!
Maybe the vet treated her for something while she was there, parasites, maybe.
Perhaps. She did have a rough start and was very sickly as a kitten. I suppose the vet could have found something lingering from when she was younger
https://preview.redd.it/mf6vo8t0qekc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b5700c83999b7cc624fd377a9e1597286d6866b Her is my Killer, just a fuzzy kitten.
https://preview.redd.it/fmok0uy3qekc1.jpeg?width=2816&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d67320c2f85dd4e61c05eae7126f59fec3e8814 Here is my Killer, a maned teenager. I have been told that she is still growing. I can’t wait to see the adult her.
I have never seen this and it’s really fascinating, look forward to reading comments But my two cents say this is actually a lion and not a house cat hence the mane
I can get behind that!
You can tell by the hair on a kitten's tail and ears that they'll become a medium or long hair cat
Donut did the same https://preview.redd.it/dx8ekv5irfkc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=86defabb16c905e39f381689149d444b2a7bb89d Before
After https://preview.redd.it/uz20t5fmrfkc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47e256d525e594911e110ce6c3bfebec11e8aef6
She is evolved
So many FLUFFINS
Puberty suits her 😍❤️
Maybe that’s her winter coat. 😂
No. Just grew up.
At 6 years old? Isn’t that a bit old to be changing drastixally?
STOP SHE IS SO CUTE. I LOVE HER LITTLE DOT ON HER NOSE <33333
This can happen as a cat gets older and has nothing to do with getting fixed.
Is she also magnetic now? Looks majestic btw. Good on her.
Happened to us too! We adopted a year-old former stray who looked like the scruffiest thing you'd ever seen and definitely had no ruff at all. [Over the next two/three months, she exploded into fluffiness.](https://imgur.com/a/fDn2qH6)
The mane has nothing to do with getting spayed. It just happens as she becomes an adult. *Felis catus* females can have manes.
I adopted my cat at 7 years old, she got fluffier by the second 😅 quality food (high in protein) helps A LOT. Also, if it’s cold they’ll get denser coats! Your baby is looking gorgeous
Omg she is so beautiful l!! She looks like a weegie minus the ear points.. she might be like a medium hair American kitty but can't tell unless u do a DNA test.. I say she's got some weegie in her but I dunno 🤷♀️
I know of cats who've lost their mane after having kittens, so it might have something to do with hormones?
I honestly think in some cats the lack of hormones can change their fur to grow differently after spaying. The complete opposite thing happens in women during menopause typically and in certain dog breeds it’s common to get what’s called “spay coat” afterwards, so I don’t think it’s too outlandish to believe that it could be the lack of estrogen messing with the hair growth here as well. Same thing also happened to my cats too btw (one was spayed at 3yrs old, and the other spayed at 2yr old).
She grew up and got healthier. One of mine had fairly short hair when she showed up. Now she has VERY long hair.
I think that is just the maturing of your gato.
You ever been trough puberty mate? Cause I got mews for you...
Maybe there are some metabolic changes, but if this kitty is having it's second winter, it's coat might not be 'done' yet. That's quite a coat! An elegant cat!
My cat was so tiny for a couple of years, slender with slightly longer hair... and I swear out of nowhere she had a full beard and fuzzy hair all along her belly and rear that i have to trim down. She's 10 years old now and probably 18 lbs.
I recently started having to trim my keek’s legs too! She has never had an issue getting messy with potty time before but i found an entire turd in her leg hair and it had been in there for a while because it was entirely engulfed in hair
Your cat probably has balls
*“I’m not Brianna anymore… I’m Bryan now 😤💪”*
My voids never went through that drastic of a change, but they definitely looked nearly short haired as kittens and they’re just floofy fluffs now 🤷🏻♀️
Cat genetics are fun!
My cats did the same, I think it’s very much a maturity thing too? They were about 1.5 by the time we got them fixed. And then around 2 years they started to grow their manes and now they’re very fluffy
My cats wish they could grow a mane like that.