Celebrating these sorts of deformed cats encourages others to acquire a similar cat and that is immoral. Read on please.
Comedian Michael Rapaport, on Instagram, said that this cat looks like his grandma.
“This little fucker looks like my GrandMa! I love my GrandMa but hate Cats.”
It made me smile but there is a serious point to make and no one is making it.
The Mashable author Morgan Sung writes that Wilfred (a chinchilla Persian) is either horrifying or adorable. I agree. In the age of the internet cat, he can be adorable because people like the unusual and the cost is irrelevant. But I am one of those who finds his appearance sad because I am concerned with cat welfare.
Cat lovers should be concerned when they look at this cat; not horror at his appearance but at the behaviour of the breeder who made such a mess of creating him. Wilfred should have been attractive, in the orthodox way, so that he sold quickly. But his bulging eyes and massively misaligned jaw indicates a tragedy of a breeding program, probably because of inbreeding. I have seen this appearance before in badly bred Persians and Exotic Shorthairs.
The more famous Lil Bub has a similar appearance. And then there is the deformed Grumpy Cat. Clearly the public is fascinated with deformed cats. Okay I get it. It’s a feline freak show. It’s wrong though. We should not be getting our kicks like this on the back of poor or unfortunate breeding.
But I don’t want to be Grumpy Man. It is nice to be entertained by cats but we do have to think about inbreeding and its consequences. I am sure that a lot of inbred cats are killed by the breeder soon after birth. I remember one breeder saying that when the kitten is very young it is not like killing them. A bizarre mentality.
Wilfred lives in Finchley, North London, UK. Some people thought that the cat’s owner, Jenna Millward, was editing the photos to create those bulbous eyes. Sadly not. They are real and it isn’t pretty.
We are told that Wilfred is healthy except he’ll have breathing problems because of his flat face and tear duct overflow. But is he? And Persians have a high rate of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). And so it goes on. Theses are unhealthy cats and we should not encourage their creation.
We are also told that he is happy and chilled out. Is he? He’s not cantankerous or permanently upset. It is just his appearance. Jenna doesn’t know why his anatomy so odd.
“He’s always had a very human-like expression. People see them and equate them to a very grumpy cat, but he’s never hissed, scratched or bitten.”
He loves to take a bath too! He is one of those cats who likes water. Jenna bought Wilfred online. I am guessing she bought direct from the breeder. She feel in love with him at first sight. She had no intention of adopting a cat until then.
Wilfred is a global celeb. There you are. We love ’em when they are strange looking.
I just knew there was something wrong with this cat. But humans also have defects. We all know they are unhealthy and could potentially be costly so it is inhumane to deliberately inbreed. And they are exploiting him. People need to know this.
Yes, Tara. And humans do have defects and we have a duty to treat these people with kindness and decency. As you say we should also treat cats with defects the same way but that’s not the case with this cat. He’s being laughed at and used to entertain.
I agree with Albert.
I see too many cats deliberately bred to exploit deformity. Mostly for money and prizes at shows.
Humans would be rightly horrified if human babies were produced with deliberately calculated deformity or disability.
Nothing gives humans the right to screw up a species as so many domestic cat species have been.
Caring for all other species, understanding them, yes. Do that, just that.
This “comedian” is an idiot displaying idiotic behavior towards an innocent and gentle cat. People should not be encouraged to do that. I also hate to be a grumpy man but I see this kind of behavior all too often. There’s nothing wrong with being caring toward our pets or strays who pose absolutely no hostility or threat to us at all. Even if they did, this is their world too and we deserve their hostility for what we do to them, as evidenced by attitudes like in this video.