The First Cats I Ever Owned, a Photo of them as Kittens
Bobby the darker cat seen as one of the kittens in the photo was a Hemingway, because she had more than usual claws on her paws. She had eight claws on each of her front paws. She was the last surviving out of the three… And had passed in 2015. Two-Furz with the half dark grey half white face ended up getting cat diabetes; it was hard to keep up after that. He was around 15 at the time he passed away, Bobby made it to about 19. The other cat is Xena, she and also passed away, a while after her owner moved out of that house.
A Hemingway cat is the folk name for a polydactyl: extra toes, extra claws, a paw that looks like a baseball mitt. Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West still runs as a sanctuary for them, descendants of a six-toed cat a ship’s captain is supposed to have given him. Bobby was not a Key West cat. She was the dark kitten on that tree, eight claws on each front paw, and she outlasted the other two. Nineteen years is a long time for a house cat. She used every one of them.
Two-Furz is the grey-and-white face. Feline diabetes is a miserable disease to manage at home. Insulin, feeding schedules, the crash if you miss a window. He made it to about fifteen. Xena left with her person and died later, which is how a lot of first-pet stories actually end: not all in the same house, not all in the same year.
Polydactyl cats are not rare in certain port towns. Sailors liked the extra grip on wet decks, and the gene traveled. Most of those cats have six toes. Eight on a front paw is the loud version. If you have never seen the Key West colony, the short film below is the cleanest look at why people still call them Hemingway cats.
The kitten photo also sits next to a later metal-and-cats joke in The Rocker Story. First animals leave a mark. These three did. More personal pieces live under The AEGIS Alliance News.
The Key West Colony Is Still There
The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West still houses nearly 60 polydactyl cats. The museum’s own page says about half of them show extra toes, and all of them carry the gene. Snow White, the six-toed cat a ship’s captain is supposed to have given Hemingway, is the origin story they still tell. Bobby was not a Key West cat. She had eight claws on each front paw — louder than the typical six-toed Hemingway. Nineteen years is still a long time for a house cat. The kitten photo is still the record. Related: the later metal-and-cats joke in The Rocker Story and the rest of who The AEGIS Alliance actually is.
