Help identify breed?
By Christine
Hi, I have a 6 year old male house cat who weighs 20 lbs. He is big all over, we have always controlled his amount of food, no endless bowl, etc. He is silver and has the markings of a Bengal, but because of his size – I don’t think so.
Also, he was rescued as a kitten in our gated community. I am sure he is a breed and not just a regular cat. Any help is appreciated!
I looked on the net and found the second image, this could be my cat! It looks EXACTLY like him.
christine72676@gmail.com
Christine
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Have you raised this cat since it was a kitten?
Thanks for commenting. I hope you receive a response.
Wow! He is beautiful! I love his markings and those big feet and toes! he a lovely big chunky boy! 🙂
Beautiful cat – most likely a mixed breed which is much healthier than a purebred cat. He will live a longer healthier life if he is not a purebred cat. He’s beautiful – I love tabby cats.
Hi Michael. I followed the link https://pictures-of-cats.org/what-breed-is-my-cat.html and swa the comment by Hande.
I was pleased to see that Hande really understands the fallacy of pedigrees and “pure-bred’ cats. We have the spectacle of random-bred Turkish And Cyprus street cats with a very pure Turkish Angora genetic marker whereas the cat fancy “Angora’ is a mishmash of cat fancy American and European breeds plus neighbour’s cats that happened to be handy, Siamese, and E Maus. They are not even Turkish. I replied giving links to messybeast.com critiqies.
Please note that pure-bred pedigree cats are generally less pure than the so-called moggies. I would like to ask what other unrelated breeds are there in the street for moggies to breed to when there are only cats descended from the European group which have been breeding together for millennia? They are very homogeneous and as genetically alike as peas in a pod. You may ask ” What about the Maine Coon” Well it owes it’s origins to SW England where polydactyl cats are most common. They all belong to the same European group of cats. Any differences are genetically minor and superficial but which the cat fancy jumps on to create a separate breed.
I suggest that Christine lovely cat is a short-haired Maine Coon. Yes, and there are short-haired Turkish Angoras too. My Firdezden is SH’d and 96.54% Ankara kedisi. http://www.messybeast.com/angora-debate.htm
http://www.messybeast.com/dna-studies-critique.htm
Christine,
His head shape and face doesn’t fit a Bengal, although I’m not an expert on the breed. I do know the large breeds cats and he doesn’t seem to fit into any of breed I know. He doesn’t appear to be overweight. My Flickr group Really HUGE Cats/Really CUTE Kittens and Cubs we do occassionaly get cats that are just plain BIG. HE could just be huge. From what I see he looks like a domestic short hair. Let’s see what the others think…
I’d like to know his name. He looks great. My opinion (and I am relaxed about being corrected) is that your very big male cat with a beautiful mackerel/spotted tabby coat is not a cat breed.
He is a superb example of a mackerel tabby random bred cat. He might be a spotted tabby. It can be difficult to tell because spots merge to stripes and the stripes can be seen on the torso. On the legs, spots always merge to stripes.
There are some beautiful tabby cats around. I know a couple of lovely tabbies and feed them where I live. Here is one of them….
They have coats and an appearance that make them special but they are not pedigree cats.
In the West (USA,Canada and Europe) pedigree cats are registered with cat associations.
This is a page that expands on what I have said:
https://pictures-of-cats.org/what-breed-is-my-cat.html
Exactly Michael. He is a lovely cat, to be sure, but not a certain breed. That is why I chose Domestic Shorthair.