My mother was a wonderful person. She was a nurse, who spent her entire life helping others. She loved cats too, and she would have said this tough old fellow here needs a good feeding-up and a warm place by the fire .

I must say that I am very sad to hear the tragic news about your mother. It came as quite a shock to read that, and my heart truly goes out to you and your family. I hope you will have the strength to get through this trying time. My sincerest condolences to you.

This poor fella may actually have some diffuse hair loss; it’s difficult to be sure. Certainly there is some hair loss in the abscessed areas. I’ve seen cats that had been scalded by boiling water, and when their fur was growing back, one of them had fur a bit like this cat’s. This one doesn’t appear to have any lesions anywhere on its body (aside from the head) except the front legs and shoulders, and that’s very typical of an intact feral tomcat who’s been fighting for awhile. There’s a lot of scarring on his front legs & shoulders too, from fighting. This guy is a veteran!

He probably isn’t any “breed”; he’s probably of mixed, uncertain ancestry, but he looks a lot like an old-fashioned Siamese in his body proportions. He even has a trace of a dewlap under the abdomen. Old-type Siamese have more rounded heads that the extreme showy types, and Siamese/Oriental – type cats are very muscular; when you pick them up they feel much heavier than they look.

I’d like to think that this beat-up old guy will find a home on someone’s hearth and end his fighting days.

Thanks for the kudos, cryptidsrus & mystery_man. I love cats, and analyzing this one has been a welcome distraction after a heartbreak.

My beautiful mother, who had fought so hard against cancer, and nearly had it beaten, has died suddenly and unexpectedly from pneumonia, on January 14. She had sufferred through so much, and the cancer was nearly gone, but her lungs were so damaged, and her health so fragile, that she was unable to overcome pneumonia that deteriorated into ARDS. She was a beautiful, intelligent, incredibly talented woman, and I will miss her forever.

Perhaps you are right that there is nothing else wrong with this cat except some abscesses and maybe a bit of head mange. This has been a pretty interesting thread for me, and I’ve learned a couple things. Thanks Kittenz.

On closer inspection, I can make out a VERY short coat of hair, but it still looks uneven and off to me. Yes, I thought that this cat looked as though it might have some sort of infestation of the type you mentioned last. It seems as though this cat could be living in the types of conditions where that sort of condition may be apt to occur, and its appearance gives that impression in my opinion. The cat seems to me to have some sort of hair loss condition to a certain extent, especially on the head, which seems to be practically completely hairless.

Although you say it is just a very short haired cat, it really does look like it has some sort of condition affecting its fur in places to me. I seem to be seeing more hair loss going on in these photos than you are. Are you sure that this cat has nothing wrong with its body hair? I’m not really disagreeing with your opinion, and I see what you mean, but it does seem remarkably low on hair, even for a short haired cat (and I’ve been perusing a good deal of photos of the breeds you mentioned), with the skin (and even splotches) apparently showing through quite dramatically in places.

If you say you are sure this is completely normal for some breeds of cats, I’ll go with you on that. There just seems to be something a bit off to me about its coat and I can’t quite pin down what it is (probably thinking way too much about it )