Stubbular, and part owl
Exotic and American Shorthair SPECIALISTS "Purfurvid" have the most prosh lil' progeny this side of Japan's East coast. They have awesome lil' pics, including this mini Winston-like kitteh, who is available. Meanwhile, check out Red, here;
Reanne P. sent me some other great suggestions from this site... There are simply too many wondeful kittehs to show. Check it out!
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oh god, oh god, oh god....
that's one huuuge head!
He sort of looks like his head is on upside down, especially in the side view. In a totally adorable way, of course! I love kittens no matter which way they put their heads on.
He cannot HANDLE that pink crushed velvet backdrop.
Poor little dude, it looks like someone poked his nose in and his eyes bulged out in response.
LOL @ Sarah! I was thinking the same thing! Such a lovely shade of Pepto Bismol. As for the kitteh; the stubbular tailio is KILLING me.
What's the poor bebeh so worried about?
Nawwh.. looks so sad!
OMG in that second picture (profile) he looks like a Furby. I'm almost worried that his eyes look too far out. :(
Keep your safety goggles on kitteh!
Don't worry, he'll grow into his eyes. I've been around plenty of persian babehs and they always look like they're one bad stumble away from losing an eyeball.
omg he totally looks like garfield :X
Oh my...
Normally I would be all over the cute, or at least laughing at his silly face...but I have a tiny kitten of my own now. Seeing this guy, compared to how a kitten "should" look, my stomach sort of did a sickening flop. :O
It's just me though, so don't mind me much. I just had a strange bad reaction to these pics. >.<
Poor thing,
people should stop breeding such kittens. They can't breathe properly and they always have worries with their eyes. That's not cute, that's cruel!
LOL @ Sarah - I completely agree. The second pic totally illustrates your theory. It's like someone did a "beep!" on the nose and the eyes went "boink!"
Poor kitteh. Can we have Cute or Sad, Meg?
BTW - MiniWinston there looks mighty annoyed.
I'm still LOLing at the second pic too. SO wrong, I know.
So on one post, you tell people they should adopt kittens from a shelter, and then in the next, give free advertising to someone selling deformed, freakish looking (some may see cute, I see tortured genetics) kittens. Seems wrong in so many ways.
I'm so not a fan of the smashy-faced/droopy eyeball/malformed noggin thing. I love me some kitties and bunnies and puppies and whatnot, but like a previous poster said.. I see tortured genetics, not happy cute kitten.
Definitely "Cute or Sad?". Or maybe "Cute or Cruel?"
Did anyone read that article on pet 'underpopulation' on that purfurvid site? Absolutely disgusting.
Meh... I'm not really a big fan of the droopy eyed, smooshed face kitties.
It's cute though in a very weird way, but I dunno, something about them just always seems to wrong. When they get older it's not so bad though.
Anywho.. poor kitty looks like it's worried about something. Don't worry kitty someone will be by shortly to snorgle you!
Frinkle Part Deux
joe, I agree 100%...
Ich. Not a fan of the squashed-face cats. Not cute, and they have breathing problems. Why do we have to breed gross mutations into animals and warp their features? I'm with Jeanette and Bunnyfluffs on this one. This isn't a practice we should applaud or be promoting.
Ditto.
I wonder how often this cat is going to hear "Aren't you the ugly little thing" as s/he grows up.
It's cute the way all baby things have to be perceived as cute regardless of what genetics did to them, but I agree that malformations should not be encouraged.
It actually looks to me as if it is struggling.
Watch it kitty - stubby pointy little tail can put someone's eye out!
Those little shelter babies in the earlier post are way, way cuter. Sorry, but I don't think the "I'm so overbred there's no room for my face" look is cute.
Aw, I think he is cute!
Tewtally stubbular.
his legs and tail are very stripey!
Ugh.
"So on one post, you tell people they should adopt kittens from a shelter, and then in the next, give free advertising to someone selling deformed, freakish looking (some may see cute, I see tortured genetics) kittens. Seems wrong in so many ways."
Amen, Jeanette. This makes me sick to my stomach. 50% of cats in shelters are put down every year, and CO is plugging kitten mills?
[Anybody else want to take this one? Or shall I? - Ed.]
That kitten is hideously deformed and probably has breathing problems and eye problems.
It's just sickening that people keep breeding animals this way because "it looks so cute!" no matter how unhealthy they are.
I think that cuteoverload, being a mostly-animal-site, should play a bit more of an ethical role in this.
I love this site, but I see way too many dressed-up animal posts and deformed inbred animal posts. And that's not cute, that's just sad and it encourages people to do the same.
Cuteoverload doesn't need to become a second PETA-site, but it could be a bit more ethical than this.
I see a lot of people here agree on this, maybe we should ask the owner of the site?
I'm way with you on the flat face look.
He's gots no nose to speak of. ,I hope he finds a loving person companion to sneeze on...
i realized that CO is a equal opportunity cute-porter but it would seem to me that taking a stance as positive as pro-adoption/anti-breeder(mills) is obvious. i am pretty disappointed. blah.
So, ehm, I see there's no official CO forum to start a discussion, so should we e-mail Meg or something?
One e-mail probably wouldn't change her mind on this, but I see a lot of people agree on this here.
('This' being not promoting unhealthy or deformed animal breeds on the site)
Or would it be impossible for CO to exist without pay from catteries and such?
1) Responsible breeders are not the same thing as puppy or kitten mills.
2) Yes, it is great to adopt from shelters. But that is not for everyone, and not everyone has a shelter near them (I, for example, do not).
3) The fact that you do not find an animal cute does not mean it is deformed or hideous.
4) No, Cute Overload does not need to be a second PETA site. Especially as many of PETA's practices aren't all that animal friendly anyway.
5) Meg has a right to post whatever she pleases, which apparently cannot be said often enough.
In conclusion, kitties, like people, are different. They come from different places, and they have different faces. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't think you are all that cute, but I doubt they are suggesting that it is cruel to let you live just because you have a turned up nose, or your eyes are maybe too close together or have a monobrow. I am not a fan of Persians in general, but I think this little fella is pretty cute. Leaping to the conclusion that he is sick and miserable and his life is awful simply because he is a purebred is ridiculous as is the assumption that there are no responsible breeders in the world. Please think before you post. No doubt the people who run the site Meg linked to will probably come here and read the comments. How would you like to be told that apparently you are a monster for breeding animals you love?
Jeanette, Nynke I'm with you.
"Hideously deformed"... "tortured genetics"... "kitten mills"... "sickening"...
Seriously, some of you -- do you even hear yourselves thinking? This isn't concern, ethics, or anything else besides making a point of being the asshole at the party.
You don't like flat-faced cats? Whoop de freakin doo. Neither do I, truth be told. Know what I do about it? I don't buy flat-faced cats. In my infinite arrogance, I have the gall to believe that making this choice is more useful and productive than to spit venom at folks who like to look at *pictures* of them.
If, at the time we were looking to adopt a cat from the local shelter, the kitty who had bonded with us most had happened to be a cast-off Persian, then very likely that's the cat who would be sitting on our footstool right now.
Get off your high damn horses. You can't play nice with my peeps, you can go scream and bitch with a hundred other vapid wackos on some celebrity gossip site. Come back when you learn some civility.
(btw, I've actually found at least one PETA forum to be remarkably civil.)
With your kind permission, Theo the editor, I will take this one.
WILL YOU ALL PLEASE HOLD ON TO YOUR BOOTS?? Thank you. Now, nowhere in this posted picture does CO say "buy from kitty mills" nor do they say "deformities in cats are healthy and to be bred for". What the post actually says is, "see these cute kittens? We have put them here for you to look at. And if you don't like looking at these kittens on this blog put here for your amusement, then don't look, cause we don't need you anyway".
BTW, if you want to see those people who pay for CO to exist, look on the sides of the page, AT THE ADVERTISEMENTS. Not at the links. If you look at the links, everyone who links to their flickr stream, their myspace page, or other blog would also be paying for CO. And we're not, so CHILL OUT OKAY?? Sheesh...
*blushes* whoops, sry theo, you got there before me...
Oh man, Whiskers, you're opening a door there that I've tried really hard to shut... but yeah, agreed.
Heh. Comment lag.
;)
Can we have a 'sheesh' category, maybe?
@Gryph:
What I said is not about the cat being ugly, because, and you are correct with that, that's a matter of taste.
What I do object to is the fact that some of these animal breeds have breed-associated 'weaknesses'. That practically means that a lot of unhealthy, handicapped animals are bred because of their appearance.
For persians and exotics one of those breed-related problems is breathing difficulties. Certain dog breeds have fragile hips, or eyes that could spontaneously pop out of their sockets.
Now does that sound like a healthy pet to you?
And of coarse I'm not saying they should kill these animals, I'm just saying they shouldn't breed with them, because taht would mean knowingly creating ill animals.
That's what I was trying to say, a health issue, not an issue of beauty.
ACK! For-profit breeders are NOT CUTE! If you love cats then adopt -- and spay/neuter!
*whispering* um...what door? if you don't mind me asking. if you don't want to say and draw more attention to it, that's okay too...
You're pickin' up what I'm layin' down.
...now, if folks were to object to the utter bastardization of life that is an owl-kitty crossbreed, THEN I'd say we had a very real and serious issue to discuss. Namely, the deep disconnect we have with reality.
@Theo and Whiskers:
Woa, I didn't mean to cause a shake-up, but I'll try to put it more gently. I really did not mean to insult you, Meg, or anyone else.
But I think that showing cute pictures of animals will cause more people to buy such a pet. Just like the movie "101 Dalmatians" causes a big increase in people getting dalmatians.
"OMG that's so cute"-->"I want one"
I think it's ridiculous to lump all breeders in together. Yes. There are puppy mills. Yes. There are kitten mills. Some breeders may breed without regard to the health or quality of life of their animals. But to get up in arms when Meg posts a kitten with a link to one particular breeder without the knowledge of what manner of breeder they are is ridiculous. I don't see a lot of people posting on the pics of pure bred Retrievers "THIS IS SO CRUEL. THEY SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO BREED." Could that be because they are considered more universally cute in the traditional way than Persians? I don't think people's objects have anything to do with breeders. I think it's just a way for them to justify the fact that they don't find Persians cute.
It isn't only "kittymills" that contribute to issues. "Legitimate breeders" can also get involved.http://www.messybeast.com/ultracat.htm .
This particular kitten may be perfectly normal for a persian. However, the side photo does make its nose look very much as if it would have difficulty in breathing.
Well, that didn't take long.
Agree to disagree and yes, by all means, Get off your high horses.
I for one, find him adorable.
I see it is gonna be one of those days on CO....
And not all breeders are puppy mills... Visit the home where you are getting your pet from if you really want to know who the breeder is and what their standards and practices are.
My grandfather was a dog breeder and he did it as a suppliment to his retirement income. The dogs were in clean warm kennels. they were carefully breed to proper mates and not breed each cycle. Puppies were given all their shots. Any one purchasing one of his dogs was encouraged to come out to his farm to see how they were cared for and encouraged to come and pick their puppy out.
Dog runs were cleaned daily and exercise runs out in the yard also occurred daily as well as grooming sessions. and each dog got individual attention.
Just because there are bad breeding situations does not mean all breeding situations are bad.
Just becasue some one is a breeder does not mean they are a puppy mill!
[especially if they're breeding *cats* - Ed.]