It’s so hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since I brought home Poussey, which I wrote about at the time. Pousseyis a black and white cat, who was and is extremely sweet and affectionate.

Her disposition made me wonder whether there’s something about black and white cats that innately makes them more loving and cuddly than other cats. And, by the way, I’m not knocking cats of any other color pattern because I’ve known plenty of affectionate cats, including my kitty Jingles, who is orange, and my tortoiseshell, Motor.

But, black and white, or tuxedo cats, just seem to have a special, loving quality about them that I’ve noticed, and, so, for this post, I set out to see what others have found out about them.

While I couldn’t find definitive proof that black and white cats are the most affectionate, I did find a lot of forums and sites dedicated to expressing love and admiration for black and white kitties. I also found some interesting facts, including the following:

Five fun facts about black and white cats:

1) According to https://pets.thenest.com/tuxedo-cats-different-8119.html tuxedo cats are classified as piebald (bi-colored cats), which are white and another color.

2) Black and white cats are black-and-white colored cats are friendly, good-natured and calm but tend to wander off, according to All Pet News.

A number of websites note a Bavarian study done in 2010 that found that black and white cats tend to wander further from home than other cats.

While I couldn’t find the actual study to confirm this information, I did notice that in an article about 10 pets that were reunited with their families after years of being lost, three of the five cats shown were black and white.

I also found an article about a cat from London who was found almost 300 miles away in Paris in 2016. https://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-07-27/cat-missing-for-eight-years-found-280-miles-away-in-paris/

Coincidence? I’m not sure, but it’s probably a good idea to keep your piebalds indoors.

3) The World’s loudest purr was from a black and white cat named Merlin, who set the record in 2015, according to https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/ten-interesting-facts-about-black-and-white-cats.html

4) The most common cat in Ireland is black and white, says an article in the Irish Times.

The article states that the “identification of the most common feline comes from a national survey of cat colour organised by The Irish Times in collaboration with a geneticist based at Trinity College Dublin.”

5) A cat in Germany that started out as black and white actually started changing to more white than black, according to: https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/rare-cat-changes-colors-elli-vitiligo

The cat, named Elli, was diagnosed with vitiligo — a condition which causes loss of pigmentation. In this case, the otherwise completely healthy cat, began transforming from black and white to white with some black and around the age of 1 year old. Elli can be seen in the youtube video below:

video credit: @elli.vitiligo

Tribute to the black and white cats I’ve known and loved:

By the way, I have had a number of pets over the years, including the incredible/fabulous/amazing/sweet Paco, shown below, who was a black and white cat.

Paco, who was rescued from a storage building at a paper company in New York, started out very shy and scared, but, somewhere along the line, became one of the friendliest, sweetest, mushiest cats I’ve ever had the occasion of knowing. I could probably write a book about Paco.

Tikki and Buffy came to me together as rescues and they always had a special bond. Tikki had a thinner face than Paco, but a similar love for being cuddled, and also a similar overall appearance. (Buffy liked food more than cuddling.)

Valentino lived up to his name. He was a lover. All I had to do was pet his head and he would start doing a little happy, paw dance with his front feet.

TC (Top Cat) was a FIV-positive rescue. He was older and a bit of a “been there, done that,” cat. I think he had spent a lot of his life outdoors, probably having to fight with other cats for food and to protect himself. But, he was always super sweet.

Finally, there was Butter Bean. Although I can’t find a picture of him, Butter Bean was yet another FIV-positive rescue who also had the misfortune of having a mangled front paw due to a declawing that went wrong. He’s one reason I always warn people not to declaw their cats — it’s extremely painful for them, even when things go right, and, as in his case, things can go wrong.