I got a cat on a restricted diet (diabetic) and two kittens who get to eat whenever they want. However, we gotta keep the kitten’s food away from our toothless old diabetic. Meal time for the kittens happens behind a closed door.
Constantly the kittens are meowing at the door for snacks. We let them in, they have a few bites, they stratch the door to come out, process repeats. We make jokes, “Time for second breakfast”, “time for elevensies”, and our poor old diabetic cat gets none of it. She gets carefully portioned prescription food twice a day (and an injection).
I always wonder what she thinks. The vet says the diabetes makes her feel hungry all the time, and I believe it. We have to keep the sandwich bread in the pantry or she’ll chew through the plastic bag and have some. Or, at least, that’s what she would do when she had teeth. We still keep it away from her.
She gets grouchy when we shoo her away from the kitten’s magic infinite food room. My socks and ankles have been gummed when she’s felt especially unhappy with the food situation.
I totally love the energy of the poster in OPs image, it’s so warm and wholesome.
That said, it’s probably true that cats (and dogs for that matter) have a variety of coat patterns because of domestication. Not only do humans choose to breed pets for their coat variations, selecting for tamer, friendlier animals actually also just introduces a variety of differences from their wild counterparts. Coat color is one of them.
https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/197/3/795/5935921?login=false
Edit: the adrenal gland is mentioned here because lessening the function of the “flight or flight” response appears to makes friendlier animals with better temperament for domestication. The idea is that domestic animals were selected for temperament first, and everything else is less important (why would you keep an animal that won’t stop biting you?).