What affects us affects cats
The only reason why domestic cats are selectively bred is to make attractive cats which sell at the maximum price and which win cat shows because they meet the guidelines of the breed standard. That pretty much sums it up in a single sentence. Selective breeding is essentially inbreeding to fix the genes of …
This is another extraordinary looking Maine Coon. I have described the cat’s muzzle as massive. It is very strong and lion-like. It would seem that the breeder is deliberately trying to create cats that look like lions. The Maine Coon’s face lends itself to this kind of breeding. Another ‘extreme’ Maine Coon breeder in …
Something needs to be done about the irrepressible desire of humans to own companion animals that are substitutes for human babies. This innate desire in humans to nurture a baby but not a genuine human is expressed in the dramatic increase in popularity of breeds, both cat and dog, with round heads, flat faces …
Tigons are very real. Charles Darwin (British naturalist and biologist famous for his theory of evolution) referred to them in 1861. There’s been a lot of breeding between male tigers and lionesses in captivity. Tigons are rarer than ligers (the product of a tigress and a male lion). Sarah Hartwell (an expert of cat …
It is instructional to remind ourselves what a badly bred purebred cat looks like. Here we have an Exotic Shorthair, the shorthaired version of the Persian. The facial anatomy has been distorted by poor selective breeding. The eyes bulge and appear to point in different directions. It is almost as if the eyes are …
Some general principles of responsible cat breeding are nicely set out in a couple of European documents. These are the “European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals” of 13 November 1987 and the “Resolution on the Breeding of Pet Animals” of 1995. The latter deals with guidelines for the revision of breeding policies. …
When did Breeding start? It started in the United Kingdom (specifically England) in the late 1800s and the first cat show was in 1871 at the Crystal Palace in South London. It was organised by the father of the Cat Fancy, Harrison Weir. Around this time the principle of genetics became better understood when …
I realise that I am hammering away at the same old problem but we have to because change is needed and it’s not happening. I feel sorry for the cat of course. The coat is far too long for the cat to maintain. It requires human intervention regularly. The coat on this particular modern …
