What affects us affects cats
Some websites confidently state that the world’s oldest cat breed is the Egyptian Mau but I disagree with the authors of these websites. Before you decide the world’s oldest cat breed you have to decide what a ‘cat breed’ is. And that, funnily enough, is quite a tricky question. I’ll explain why. Before about …
Historians at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studied the inbred monarchs of England and Scotland from 990 to 1800. They were inbred because marriages at that time were unions of convenience both politically and strategically. The most inbred monarch in the study was Charles II of Spain. His parents were uncle and niece. …
The two reasons why domestic cats are selectively bred, primarily by cat breeders, is to create cats with a certain appearance and secondarily cats with a certain character. Selective breeding is the opposite to natural selection. Natural selection refers to the evolution of the species as espoused by Charles Darwin in his book On …
Depending on the meaning of the phrase ‘cat breed’ the first cat breeds were either the Japanese Bobtail, British Shorthair and Egyptian Mau OR the British Shorthair and the Maine Coon. I’ll explain why I have come to this conclusion. Other authors have confidently stated that the first cat breeds are those that have …
Cat breeders have been more successful in matching a domestic cat to the lion than to the tiger. The Toyger (toy tiger) is a designer cat breed. The reason for its existence is to match the tiger in appearance. To bring the tiger into the home in miniature but safer! The Maine Coon was …
The domestic cat, we have to admit, has an unexpressive face compared to that of humans. This allows us to project our thoughts onto our cat. The reason is because their ability to be social is only a few thousand years old. The domestic cat has evolved from a solitary animal to a social …
I’ve never bred domestic cats and have no desire to do so because I believe that all people should adopt a domestic cat companion from an animal shelter and when that task has been completely carried out and there are no unwanted cats remaining on the planet then we might consider breeding cats for …
I have just written about a study in which the scientists found that individual cats are hypoallergenic (the link opens in a new tab). They refer to cat breeds but I don’t have access to the study details. I don’t believe that specific cat breeds other than the Siberian are hypoallergenic but breeders would …
