Polydactyl cat

[Uppercrust]

We decided to add a fifth cat to our house and adopted. Not sure how to post a picture from my iPad cause I don't have a card reader to upload a photo. This kitten is 4 months old, all 4 feet have extra tows, looks like mittens in front, he is solid black. Has anyone else had a cat like this? We need a name also, don't like the name he came with Marcos.

[fredandkathy]

We always had our cats declawed, but now we have 3 with claws that we trim quite often. I would never declaw another cat unless it was extremely destructive. We have trained them to use a scratching post and have at least 1 in every room of the house. In retrospect, they trained us, now us training them.

[Uppercrust]

We are leaning towards Ernie because of Ernest Hemmingway. I know declawing is not right, all of our cats are front paw declawed, but with a cat like him would it be a good thing to have done, at least the front? His back paws have 5 he is so darn cute!

[ChiMom]

When we have polydactyls come into our Animal Shelter, they usually get named after a famous boxer because of their big mitts. 🙂 Rocky, Apollo (Creed), Sugar Ray, Leon (Spinks), etc.

[cmeade]

toedtoes wrote:
Great cats. From what I read, all are descended through a single colony in Massachusetts (IIRC). Hemingway received one from a ship's captain and a secondary colony was established in Florida. He gave many away to friends, etc., and polydactyls became widespread. They are also known as Hemingway Cats or Mitten Cats. Teddy Roosevelt had one named Slippers.

I had one for many years. He was a great cat and the source of my screen name. Mine had 2 extra toes on each foot (8 extra in total) and had an extra pad on each front foot. He was actually able to grip and hold things with his front feet (the extra toes and pad would curl around the item). However, he could climb due to the way they were placed. The world record is held by a cat with 27 toes - mine had 26.

One thing to watch for is how the claws sit and grow. With mine, he had one toe on the front whose claw would grow under and into the pad of his foot - I had to be extra vigilant with keeping that claw trimmed. I used to count his Toed toes regularly.

Some names that relate to the polydactyl: slippers, mittens, hemingway, ernest, compton, santiago, pedrico, toes, paws, catcher, toed (my personal favorite), mitt, feetsie.

When my DW was a little girl she had one and named it Sugarfoot after the 60s western series.

[toedtoes]

dturm wrote:
I've seen many in practice. Often times it's hard to keep the nails trimmed just because of structure of the extra toes and the nails become ingrown. (Just a little professional warning :B) Enjoy your new one.

Doug

I was writing that as you posted it. 🙂 Definitely something to stay on top of.

[toedtoes]

Great cats. From what I read, all are descended through a single colony in Massachusetts (IIRC). Hemingway received one from a ship's captain and a secondary colony was established in Florida. He gave many away to friends, etc., and polydactyls became widespread. They are also known as Hemingway Cats or Mitten Cats. Teddy Roosevelt had one named Slippers.

I had one for many years. He was a great cat and the source of my screen name. Mine had 2 extra toes on each foot (8 extra in total) and had an extra pad on each front foot. He was actually able to grip and hold things with his front feet (the extra toes and pad would curl around the item). However, he could climb due to the way they were placed. The world record is held by a cat with 27 toes - mine had 26.

One thing to watch for is how the claws sit and grow. With mine, he had one toe on the front whose claw would grow under and into the pad of his foot - I had to be extra vigilant with keeping that claw trimmed. I used to count his Toed toes regularly.

Some names that relate to the polydactyl: slippers, mittens, hemingway, ernest, compton, santiago, pedrico, toes, paws, catcher, toed (my personal favorite), mitt, feetsie.

[dturm]

I've seen many in practice. Often times it's hard to keep the nails trimmed just because of structure of the extra toes and the nails become ingrown. (Just a little professional warning :B) Enjoy your new one.

Doug

[gbopp]

We had a poly years ago. Front paws only. He was adopted from a shelter, we called him Blinky.
He had one eye, the other was shot out by a BB gun, which is why he ended up at the shelter.
Very lovable cat, we had him about 14 years.
I've found the best way to name a pet is not think about it. In a few days, the name just comes to you.
Congrats. :C

[DutchmenSport]

Yes, mitten paws cats are more common than you think. We had one for 16 years. I still miss him. Why not name the cat Paws.