This is a careful selection of ten photographs in a British Shorthair picture gallery. I have tried to avoid all the pictures of the British Shorthair that are already published on PoC (except for the Russian cat). I have selected two by Helmi Flick. The rest come from the best of the Flickr photographers (although two are my snapshots). Their photographs are published here under license – thank you. You can see the page on PoC about this cat breed by clicking on this link.
You can tell how popular a cat breed is by how many photographs there are of the cat on the internet. That might sound like a crude test but I have found that there is a close correlation.
There are a lot of British Shorthair pictures but few good pictures, which is understandable. I have also tried to select nice looking examples of this breed too as well as interesting cats. One of the pictures is of a Russian Brit SH. Personally, I find this individual cat strange looking. It appears to be a case of overbreeding. Breeders do tend to get a bit carried away and overdo through selective breeding the outstanding parts of the breed’s anatomy. For the British Shorthair the cobby appearance and squared off face is a feature. The Russian cat has overblown cheeks for me making it look like a hamster with stuffed cheeks (hamsters store food in their cheeks).
These are square thumbnails. Please click on the images for a full format and sometimes a large format picture together with a credit, a comment and a link to the original. Thanks.
The problem of strange cheeks (for me) with the Russian Brit SH probably comes from the World Cat Federation (WCF) breed standard. Russian breeders usually register with this cat association as far as I know. With respect to the head the WCF standard says:
The head is rounded, massive, broad with a firm chin. The nose is short, broad and straight. The profile is curved (without any stop). Cheeks are full and pronounced…
This cat breed should look fairly regular and normal. The breed comes from standard moggie British cats. I believe that a cat’s heritage should be respected and recognised in the purebred version.
The standard for CFA registered cats is (extract shown):
…round and massive. Round face with round underlying bone structure …
There is no reference to the cheeks. Thankfully. The WCF standard is wrong in my opinion (sorry but that is my feeling). Look what it has produced. A hamster. How breeders manage through selective breeding to create a cat with permanently puffed up cheeks is beyond me.
I can’t help but find they look a little like teddy bears. I hoped that doesnt sound derogatory – it certainly isn’t meant to be. I love BSHs – I had one across from my old office and I took so many photos of him, he was so beautiful – a blue/grey boy. Very sweet and friendly too.