Kitty gender confusion

[Dreamstalker]

My stepfather has had a Senegalese Green (bird) since 1997, and none of us know what sex it is. He rescued it from a pet shop that only sold cats and dogs, so the owner didn't even know.

[Pixilated]

Glad to see I'm not the only one with a "whatzit" cat ...
A few years ago I had 3 cats: two very elderly (one male, one female) and a much younger male cat. I decided the young cat needed a companion in his age range and he seemed to get along better with the elderly female cat, so ... off I go to a cat rescue organization. Picked out this gorgeous mostly white medium-haired kitty, listed as 'female' on the cage tag. The day I go to get "her" they tell me, "Uh, we're sorry, it's actually a male ... does it matter?"

I wasn't going to snub the kitty on that basis and brought him home, and as it turns out, it didn't matter; the two get along just fine.

Even my longstanding catsitter was bamboozled; I was talking to her just recently about the two cats (the elderly ones have since passed on to Kitty Heaven) and mentioned the newest addition ... "He" does this and "he" does that ...

Her: "That's a male?!?"
Me: "Yes, they're both males."
Her: "OMG!! I've been saying 'What a pretty little girl you are!' I'll have to stop that!"

Cat in question has a high-pitched little mew (his nickname is Squeaker of the House) and a whispery little purr, and he's a little jumpy when it comes to sudden noises or movements -- overall he gives the impression of a dainty "little" cat (even though he's pretty much standard-sized), so the confusion isn't surprising.

[retailninja]

We have a female cat named Fergus. We adopted her as a kitten from our veterinarian hospital, where she was abandoned along with her sister and three brothers at one day old. The vet techs all took the kittens home and bottle fed them until they were ready to be adopted. The particular vet tech who nursed our kitty confessed to us that she had really wanted one of the boy kittens, but ended up with a little girl. So, she gave her a boy's name. We kept the name because this particular kitty is not very girly!

[fireheart]

My stepfather has had a Senegalese Green (bird) since 1997, and none of us know what sex it is. He rescued it from a pet shop that only sold cats and dogs, so the owner didn't even know.

I would imagine that if you did a bit of searching you'd be able to find out.

I had to wiki to know how to check the sex of cockatiels (if anyone's curious, males have yellow heads, females have grey heads)

[HappyFun Ball]

I had a solid black cat I thought was a girl, I named her Bellatrix. Until one day she walked away from me with her tail in the air and I saw those little black cotton balls, I called him Bella- Boy from then on out.

[dilutedvoice]

Daw cute pic! My siamese have always been easy to sex (I bought the mother kitty, she had 6 litters....put purringly to sleep last year at age 14.) "Rose", the mutt kitty my sister bought, turned into Alex, after we found out he was a male. Bought the same year, cuddled together, put to sleep next to each other on the table. :*(

[lineswine]

A few years ago, one of our female cats (Misty) went out & didn't come back. Naturally, we went looking - as this was autumn/winter, it was pretty dark in the evenings.
We came across this wee kitty, meowing furiously to be let in at a neighbours' home.
The neighbours politely said they have a big dog, who's none-too-keen on anything feline.
We thought nothing of it, with Misty returning (Her: Hi! Anyone miss me? Us: Gerrin, ya evil feline!) the following morning.
Fast forward to the evening - the nice neighbours had turned up to our back door, regaling tales of total incompatibility between said feline (whom they just "happened" to have with them) & aforementioned HUGE dog. Before we could say "we've enough on our plate thankyou", a speeding Lineswine jr. shot down the stairs, grabbed said kitty & disappeared back to his room,trailing "canwekeephim, canwekeephim?" in his wake, as 10 year olds are likely to do.
At 1st, said kitty wasn't fully grown, so I though the name Caitin (catling) was appropriate...until he grew ONE testicle...not two, ONE. (The other he kept internally, for safe keeping!)
I rapidly re-named him...I thought of "Pete" & then it came to me - as he was the Eigth cat of Eight, 8 of 8 - Bob!
He wiped his feet, settled down & has been with us (barring daily mouse/bird/"who's that, then?" excusions) for 5 years or so.
Such is life in the loony-bin we call home.

[TheSHAD0W]

"So tell me, why did you name your cat 'Ben Hur'?"

"Well, his name was Ben - then one day he had kittens."

[Merriweather]

We've actually had two gender-confused birds.

My very first parakeet (I was 5) was named Suzy-Q. You tell the sex of a parakeet by the colour of the little thing over their beak - however, I believe it changes colour when they're quite young, so you have to wait til then to be sure. I don't recall if my parents knew this and determined too soon, or didn't know and were just told it was female at first, or what, but after teaching the bird to say "Suzy-Q is a pretty girl", it was discovered it was male, and had a name change to Pete. So of course it eventually was taught to say "Pete's a pretty boy". The poor confused little thing would sit for hours saying "Pete's a pretty girl", Suzy-Q's a pretty boy", and "Pete's a pretty Suzy-Q".

Then in my teens, we had another parakeet. This one definitely had the markings of a male, and we'd had it several years. Then suddenly, "he" begain to lay eggs (no hatchings, as no other bird was involved, unless you count the plastic bird it would snuggle with and refuse to let anyone near). We just left his name as Pete (my paents were obviously not terribly creative at naming) and continued to say "he"......

[crazyclerk12]

Oh yeah? Try finding out you had girl and boy bunnies when you check their hutch and see 8 little baby bunnies sitting pretty. Yeah.

[Becks]

Oh yeah? Try finding out you had girl and boy bunnies when you check their hutch and see 8 little baby bunnies sitting pretty. Yeah.

Hamsters.

They...weren't good parents, but excellent at breeding.

[Hyena Dandy]

I once had a Meezer mix I had thought was a girl and named Boris. Upon getting a better look, Boris became Anastasia.

And a friend of mine had her "Dixie" go to the vet, and found out that Dixie was a neutered male. He became Mr Dixie.

Mr. Dixie is possibly the cutest name I have ever heard.

I want to call a cat Mr. Dixie and he will be all white and I will give him a bow-tie and he will be my best friend ever.

[fireheart]

Oh yeah? Try finding out you had girl and boy bunnies when you check their hutch and see 8 little baby bunnies sitting pretty. Yeah.

There's a Paul Jennings story called "Too Many Rabbits" which is similar to that.

Basically a boy adopts a pet rabbit, then discovers that its female AFTER it gives birth. After that, basically all the bunnies start interbreeding with each other until there's about 450 of them. They end up tunnelling into this junk shop that's due to close down and the owner of said junk shop ends up selling them.

[bhskittykatt]

A former CW, when she was little, had gotten a boy gerbil from the pet store. The "boy" gerbil gave birth to several baby gerbils a while later.

She kept them for a while, but eventually it became too overwhelming for a little girl, so her mom took her and the young gerbils back to the pet store.

The pet store clerk put them in a cage behind the counter. Former CW was looking around the store, but was suddenly ushered out by her mom when a customer with a large snake walked in. "What's going to happen to the gerbils, Mommy?" she was asking while the snake customer approached the counter.

It wasn't until she got older that she understood why her mom ushered her out of that store so fast!

[Skeen]

We had a male cat named Precious once.

Best cat ever. Miss him every day.