Another picture of Frigga, a little older here - teenager stage, a Phosphorus (Phos) personality.

Diffusion is the keyword in many lists of keynote symptoms for Phos. The bright look and upright sitting position is very Phos.
Also "Open, Extroverted, Lively, and Expressive". I'd say she has joyful, burning enthusiasm for life, though that is not in the repertory. It suits all the Phos types I know. People see her on cat shows and exclaim "Gee she sits so beautifully - did you train her to do that!" Most show cats lie about. And as with most Phos cats you can see her enthusiasm for life in her expression.
The diffusion may sound vague but is actually very typically descriptive. Frigga is everywhere, she arrives without notice, she's involved anywhere she can put her nose into someone's business, she delights in influencing as much of her environment as possible. She's the one who loves buttons. She'll push the printer paper feed button and dash round to see the paper shoot out, then rush back to do it again. When there's enough paper she'll invite the other cats to join her in a game of skating. When I arrive home, she'll have a 20 minute story of how life was while I was out, and will take me around to water bowls, litter trays, telling me what needs topping up, delighted that she can influence me. Phos chatters about anything and everything to which you will listen.
My dear late (human) friend - I'll call her Edna - was also a phos . She had to know who was doing which to whom, and why, and she could repeat stories about her cats on the phone for hours on end. But of course when *she* had finished chatting she was in a great hurry to hang up to get to the next thing she had in mind. She too had endless energy. Somewhere in her late eighties, she'd walk miles and miles to do what she wanted at a large fair - and she'd travel anywhere she wished, and just arrive.

Frigga has endless energy too, and seems to fly up onto six foot bookcases, landing like a feather, with plenty of energy left to investigate whatever she had in mind there. She happens to be a button fanatic, and switches on the TV and VCR from the remote, and a favourite is the fax mahine, with its coded beeping 16-digit numbers, all ready to dial overseas with a simple speed-dial button push plus any other button. Her gleeful games with buttons and switches are a major delight for her, and a major problem for me at times. My stove has to be switched off at the fuse box since she figured out how to turn on hotplates.

Phos is physically a tall cat, long legs, but not heavily built. Frigga is the slightest of the members of her breed at my house, but notice how even her fur tends to diffuse out into the world. She diffuses out in more ways. As a breeding girl, in season she will spray, while most females will not. Phos neutered males will sometimes also spray.
Travelling in the car, she will sometimes let fly a bowel movement - with a great howl before that as she can no longer control it. (A dose of Phos before a trip will prevent this.) Note Phos has "sensation as if the anus remained open".
Phos is sensitive to all external impressions. (More on this with the second cat example who did not have a normal life.) A less kind way of saying this for people is that they can be led by he nose. It's easy to influence them - and just about anything will influence them. Frigga saw a female Oriental cat in season with their typical very loud calling, and decided she had to try that. She practised to get it right. (Wegies have a very soft call, just some urrts and prrts normally.) Ever since then she has been calling twice as loud as any other cat of her breed, with a comic half-Norwegian half-Oriental call with the volume on full.

She's equally able to influence others: When my Norwegians (Wegies) and I stayed with a friend and her Orientals (Oris) the two breeds had incompatible body language. Oris are "in your face" cats with nosebumps popular as a greeting, sleep on top of each other in heaps, and can't stand having their tails messed with. Wegies want their personal space, would never dream of being so rude as to sit or lie on another cat but they consider each others' fluffy long tails to be built-in toys. It was Frigga who negotiated the compromise with my friend's Phos cat Tippy! Soon all the cats had a compromise body language, with 1/4 inch space around wegies, minor tail battings only for Ori adults, full blown tail attacks okay with the kittens, and the adult Oris learned the Wegie "headbump" greeting in lieu of the Ori nose-bump greeting the Wegies found too forward. Ori kittens delighted in furry live rugs to lie on but the adults lay only on other Oris. Frigga and Tippy as negotiators had my friend and me in stitches. They each experimented till they got a deal going. I regret I do not have a photo of Tippy. He too is a tall cat, not heavily boned, fast, athletic, a shorthair black and white "tuxedo" male neuter cat, who was half Oriental. By "tall" I mean the legs are long relative to the body length.

It's my belief that a happy phos personality is most easily discovered by the interactions they can't resist making with all and sundry in their life - they must have company, must know all about them and know whatever their friends' frinds know, and then inadvertently (because they can't help themselves) must tell everybody else too, to be energetically involved. Phosphorus as an element has huge bright energy that virtually explodes outwards - diffusing into the environment. So too the healthy Phos personality.

Other observations that seem common to Phos cats in particular, based on Phos cats I know from three different breeds including two of my own cats:
They would not be seen dead lying upside down - couldn't possibly diffuse into he world fast enough. They sit upright and straight and regal. Lying down, they may lie slightly on one side but usually with the head and shoulders held high and regal, to see as far into the environment as possible - able to shoot off into action instantly. Front paws stretched way out, but back legs tucked under the hips in launch position, is a common posture. Sitting is a more common position for a Phos cat where most others will be lying down comfortably. Phos just seems to have the energy to sit instead. I also notice that Phos cats are supremely agile. I have yet to see a Phos cat walk. They trot, and as kittens those with long fur look most amusing as the fur flaps up and down on their backs as they trot - walking is too slow and unenergetic. They tell you when someting is wrong or something is important. For example Frigga calls me when she is due to deliver kittens - makes no bones about it - vocalizes, shows me the "show" at the vulva, and insists I follow her to her nest. She also (thankfully) told me when she had a severe spider bite, hopping to me on 3 legs, chattering about the paw in the air about which I was obviously supposed to do something. They fly about to high elevations with apparent lack of effort whether they weigh 9 lbs or 14 lbs, and don't land with the thud you'll hear from a Puls cat, whether going up or jumping down. Nor do they seem to need any planning beore they jump. They are simply airborne without apparent effort.

Comparing with my Phos friend, she was somewhat overweight as an older person, but she had equally surprising ability to get about as Phos cats have. I would call her taller than average and not heavily built as to bone structure - as with Phos cats.

I'd love to add "chatterbox" to the repertory but it does not fit all Phos types. Some find other ways to be involved in everything. Here's Furry Boots King Lygny, my other Phos cat: Note his expression. He'd been abused and was frightened - but he still looks out into world keenly.

King Lygny in Norse mythology was the one individual who wanted to negotiate peace instead of going to war for it. A very sensitive kitty - susceptible to what's around. I sold him to someone with a very old cat thinking he was so gentle he'd not bother the old girl. To make a long sad story short, I reposessed him. He'd had large books thrown at him any time he approached the older cat, had become a nervous wreck, and the young vet saw only the bleeding from the rectum (typical Phos) and threw in the worst abrasive food he could have chosen, strong antibiotics and cortisone into the poor kitten. When I found out much later and took him back, Lygny was too weak to hop off a chair to the floor without his long legs collapsing, his fur was coming out in handfuls, he had no coat though it was winter, and he shook like a leaf continuously, and ran in terror from all and sundry. You can see his worried expression in the above photo, a week after I took him back. You can see his typical tall slim phos build below,

and still lower down, you can see how he is starting to play games just a week after I took him in, threw out the drugs, got his anemia and malnutrition on track and spent long hours just talking to him. I did this lying on the floor so as to be less tall than Lygny, and so as to not be in a ready-to-attack type of posture - to be least threatening. Phos cats can't resist communicating, so he melted with a few purrs and a lot of gentle sympathizing in English. People call me nuts, but cats do listen and soon learn to understand plain English, and they appreciate politeness and consideration. So - even though I have yet to know what Lygny's voice sounds like, he uses body language to chat instead. Rather than be stroked, he prefers to walk back and forth under my hand. Busybody Phos, he can't sit still long enough to be a lapcat, but he visits frequently, puts a paw on the chair arm and bats my shoulder with the other paw for attention. Then we do the back and forth stroking routine, till he darts off at mach ten to "bounce off the wall" other side the house, and invite another cat to join the game. Don't leave a Phos person or cat alone - they can't stand it. If one is traumatized, add a smaller (less threatening) friend who is not a Phos (so you don't have two easily impressionable cats together.)

Lygny loves figuring out how to empty every cupboard I have, and believes they were designed for him to do this. He empties cupboards where Frigga pushes buttons - but neither leaves a cubic millimeter unexplored for potential entertainment value.
Lygny shows "diffusion" even in the way he eats: He takes a mouthful of dry pellets, and tosses them as far and wide as possible. Then he chases them about like escaped mice, pouncing on each pellet and eating it, just for joyful fun. He empties little drawer units on my dressing table, tossing all the "toys" onto the floor and investigating what he's found. He figured out how to remove the child-locks on the kitchen cupboards, and empty those out. The bottom cupboard is his favourite - he rearranges the cleaning rags and makes a bed- and closes himself in there with the door only slightly ajar. There's a good view from that particular angle!

Lygny took a long time to come right - two years of treatment. For a year he locked himself in my bedroom as if there was a force field in the doorway, and he hid from visitors. His IBD (Irritable Bowel disease) returns any time he eats the wrong food (anything with fiber not fermentable by cats such as cellulose, or with many vegetables, or with low protein) or if he gets stressed. He's overcome most of his trauma. He made friends with a pushy litte kitten. Actually it was she who dive-bombed him and did not take no for an answer. The lovely friendship was threatened when the little one took ill and I put her in a hospital cage outside of the room where Lygny had his "force-field door".
Well - all my persuasion was as nothing compared with taking away his rambunctious little friend. He sneaked out of the bedroom and parked himself on top of the hospital cage, crouched as small as possible. Within a week he was all over the place unafraid, and I needed shares in the child cupboard-lock business. There is not a corner of this place from ceiling to floor that he has not played with or found a way to empty or rearrange. He plays joyfully now where he used to look worried and guilty if I found him playing or if anyone inadvertently tossed the least thing from somewhere to somewhere else.

I am pleased to say he's quite a different cat from the one he was when he arrived a shaking bundle of nerves and bones. His winter coat here is what he should have been wearing in the first photos too.

I hope the description of Frigga and Lygny's personalities has helped readers "see" the Phos characteristics and personality as I see them in cats. There are many other Phos key characteristcs I did not mention. It's not because they are not there, it's because the ones here are I think easiest to see in a Phos cat, and I think - I hope - that I brought out the diffusion key characteristic and some ways to interpret that.
There are cat-related thoughts I have, which may not be in the repertory - but my personal observations: Phos cats are very fastidious about their grooming. They are not fanatical groomers like Puls. It's okay if there is a hair out of place, but they work hard to be clean if their fur gets grubbied up anywhere. They seem to believe in cleanliness - not to be confused with a perfect coiffure necessarily. The cleanliness Frigga achieves is such that even for a cat show, she has never needed a bath, just a comb and brush - and Lygny has not needed a bath even with IBD a problem when he had that.
Neither cat has been groomed for the photos here.

Note: These are Norwegian Forest Cats but one may find Phos personalities in many breeds, many of them short-haired breeds.

(This page may be updated once in a while - please respect my copyright and don't copy it to anywhere.)

Copyright - Irene de Villiers, 2001

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