Are My Adorable Boys Turkish Angoras?

CAN I HAVE ONE OF THEM. PLEASE

I take issue with Lisa James that only "purebreds" are real Turkish Angoras. To make such a statement is to be ignorant of, or totally misunderstand genetics. And to ascribe way too much importance to the associations of cat fanciers for this particular breed. What she says is true only for artificial breeds, but it is not true for natural breeds.

Most modern “breeds” only exist as such because of human, not natural, selection factors. We might as well call them “artificial” breeds, because they would not likely continue without human attention and artificial isolation created by neutering all animal sold as pets, and restricting the breeding population to just those individual animals “conforming” to some human-established criteria. For these artificial breeds, Lisa James is correct – they only exist as part of a formal cat fancier association.

However, for those cat breeds that exist from natural selection, which from all accounts would include the Turkish Angora, the breed is independent of the cat fancier association. The existence of the natural line and the artificial line brings up a conflict in definition. “Turkish Angoras” from the artificial line being culled by cat fancier associations, and real Turkish Angoras from the natural line. (See First we should know what Turkish Turkish Angoras look like ).

In this case of the “purebred” it is so only so in the sense that it is a documented, human-controlled line. But it would be foolish to think that the artificial line only includes natural Turkish Angoras. Breeders work with very small gene pools, and very often breed daughter back to sire to establish “human-desirable” characteristics. This inbreeding is a bad genetic practice that also tends to breed in genetic diseases. Breeders must occasionally introduce other strains to keep the gene pool healthy. As the purebred lines age, they become distinctly differentiated from the natural line.

Now for the natural line, it has largely disappeared. But it can be recovered from the population of naturally-breeding cats. There are a large number of cats running around with a strand of the real Turkish Angora DNA as part of their DNA code. (See Why Turkish Angoras pop up in the non-purebred population of cats). All one has to do to re-establish the natural line is identify a male and female with a DNA strand of Turkish Angora, and mate them. Some of the kittens stand a good chance of genetically being a real Turkish Angoras, and some may still be mixed.

So which strategy is best? I’ll put my money on the genetic recombination as being the purer representative of the original Turkish Angoras.

Thank you Lisa, for once again saying a few words of reason in a sensitive matter. You always do this in a positive way which really should not put off anybody.
It is indeed a shame if shelter workers try to put breed names on cats of unknown origin, just because they think this might ease an adoption. Being a mixed breed cat is nothing to be ashamed of.
Right next to me is princess Snow White, whom we found in a shelter last year. In many ways she differs from the traditional Danish mixed breed domestic cat, but that doesn't make her British Shorthair or anything else. She's a mixed breed moggie and I'm just grateful that we found her.

Hi there!

That is a lovely photo, GORGEOUS boys & it's "possible" that the solid white one may be what we call a "throwback", meaning that there is enough of the TA gene in the domestic gene pool to have random bred domestic medium haired cats "appear" to be purebred breeds of (insert your beed here). However, the cream lynx point boy is not a Turkish Angora. European breeders would debate that, because they claim that there is no way to tell what the white coat of the Zoo cats mask, & there could always have been points in the gene pool, but most of us here in the US believe that the points & pointed bicolor cats are attributed to breeders in Europe breeding to Oriental Longhairs, Javanese, or Balinese after WW2, causing hybridization, & therefore, not natural to the breed today.

Like I tell everyone, without a written pedigree to prove your cat's heritage, it cannot really be called a "purebred" anything. We call these cats lookalikes, or "wannabes", & I list rescue cats that appear to be a certain breed as just that, lookalikes, on our escue websites. There's no harm in calling a cat what it is instead of trying to make it something it isn't.

I have a domestic mediumhair cat, who was a bottle baby I raised from the time she was rescued at 2 weeks old. I absolutely adore her. Her mom was a feral, her dad was a traveling salesman. But I'm not going to call her a certain breed just to "make" her something other than a mixed breed, because that's exactly what she is.

TRUE purebed cats are less than ONE percent of the total number of cats in shelters, but shelter workes will call anything they can a "breed" of cat in orde to induce the public to adopt it, thus further perpetuating the belief that breeders are the ones causing the pet "overpopulation" problem.

I have been in rescue for 20 years, bred & rescued American Eskimo Dogs for several years & showed them in 3 registries. I have shown & bred Turkish Angora cats since 2006, & Oriental Shorthairs since last year.