Full tails at my place. My old Burmese managed to get a kink in the end of his tail during a scrap with the neighbors moggy. Luckily my Coon and Brit short hair don't go out beyond the patio.

 

Unless I'm misinformed, the explanation to this question involves a plot to kill an emperor using a cup of tea with poison. The emperors cat overheard the conversation involving the plot and decided to protect his owner by making sure no one messed around with his masters tea. So the cat wrapped his tail around the handle of the cup. This way he would notice if someone slipped poison into it...that night, the plotters made an attempt to poison the emperors tea and in the fight that followed the cat lost his tail.

 

But that's a fairy tale. Or at least they say so...

A fitting tale (tail) to close this discussion, surely?

18 hours ago, kannot said:

Maybe we  should start  lopping  off  human tails as  well..................what a sick world

 

I read somewhere that the French loose theirs naturally at a young age?

On 23 สิงหาคม 2559 at 9:48 AM, manfredtillmann said:

given that some of the tails are not just short but also crooked as in having 90 deg. angles or folded over i always thought the animals had had accidents or got badly treated. i have only ever seen two cats with proper tails up here and they were both well groomed  indoor animals.

When I was young and living in SEA I asked why all the cat tails were bent over and was told it was a Chinese custom to break them. However, I checked on google and there is no direct evidence to support that. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the cause.

 

A few cats where I live that have normal tails.