If dogs are man’s best friend, cats are man’s slightly effeminate roommate who refuses to stop shitting on the floor. That said, they are pretty cute, especially when they have eyes that make them look like they can fire two kinds of lasers out of their face like the Van cat. If you own a cat as well, here’s a full list of cat products which you can use to treat your cat better.
The Van cat is so-named because it’s a breed indigenous to the Lake Van region of Turkey which, according to Wikipedia, is the largest lake in Turkey that isn’t filled to the brim with snakes [citation needed]. Along with being almost entirely snake free, Lake Van is notable for being one of only places on Earth where you’ll find cats that actually enjoy swimming.
Whereas most cats will lose their shit like a hydrophobic Mogwai if exposed to a drop of water, Van cats seem remarkably unphased and characteristically unable to give a fuck about it and have even been observed willingly leaping into the Lake Van to swim around and enjoy the feeling of urinating while pretending to be the shark from Jaws. Exactly why these cats seem to enjoy water more than regular cats isn’t clear, but it has made the Van cat the subject of many rumors and legends. A Van cat’s fur is also noted as being almost entirely water-proof, meaning it can happily submerge itself completely in water while still keeping its coat at the optimum level of fuzziness to attract belly rubs.
Perhaps the weirdest aspect of Van cats is that the breed seems to be incredibly susceptible to suffering from heterochromia, which is the “I read books” way of saying that they are often born with two completely different colored eyes.
These two traits, combined with the breeds inherent rarity have made them incredibly popular in their native Turkey where the local populace deem them to be good luck, especially if they have one amber eye and one blue eye. As a result, a breeding program was started in the late 90’s to try and breed as many pure white, odd-eyed specimens as possible because sometimes, the world just needs more ice white, heterochromatic cats.
So if you feel sad today, just remember that somewhere in Turkey, there’s a big lake in which tiny adorable cats like splashing around and swimming.
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