“Deceptive floof” is an amusing and nice way describe the longhaired cat with a slender body underneath. You get some really amusing comments about the deceptive floof such as:
- All floof but no substance
- As deceptive as an iceberg
- More like an ice-PURR-g
- Cats are liquid
- Now, this is the definition of “I’m not fat, I’m fluffy!”
- Just shove yo face in there!
Perceptions
From a slightly scientific point of view, the way the Persian cat immediately went through this mesh fence in the video above tells me that she perceives her size not as her body plus her coat but as her body only. This might be entirely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Who cares? But clearly, cats know themselves in terms of their body size by ‘deleting’ the thickness of their coat when they want to get through a gap.
I know the experts say that cats measure gaps by the width of their whiskers but I think that that is a simplistic concept. Their whiskers might guide them but ultimately they know the width of their body and it doesn’t include their fur.
On the other side of the coin, humans sometimes have an incorrect perception about the size of a cat. They are deceived by the fur. Take, for example, the Maine Coon cat. Yes, this is a big cat, the biggest domestic breed, but they look bigger than they are because they have this beautiful, shaggy, medium-longhaired coat covering them. Remove that impressive coat and you might see quite a skinny, rangy and bony animal underneath. Of course, it depends on how they are fed but the Maine Coon cat is quite a rangy, lanky cat and this is all covered up by their fur.
This takes me right back to the beginning with the phrase “deceptive floof”. It describes a cat which is deceptively slenderer than they actually look. It is the fur which deceives people. That’s where the deceptiveness comes from.
Unnaturally long
On a slightly more serious note, the Persian cat has very long fur. Arguably, through selective breeding, the breeders have made the fur of a Persian cat too long. It is unnaturally long. How do I know this? Simple. The Persian cat needs human intervention to keep their coat in good condition. They do not have the means to keep it in good condition themselves because if humans don’t intervene in brushing their Persian cat their fur becomes matted.
Playing God
Surely, this is a very clear-cut example of how artificial selection can make things worse from natural selection. It isn’t just the overly-long coat of the Persian cat which is wrong – I’m getting too serious here. It is also the brachycephalic head which means they have an unnaturally round head. It is a big, round head with a short broad nose and it causes all kinds of problems too, sometimes, a misaligned jaw, tear duct overflow, abnormal position of teeth, disposition to birth difficulties, short upper jaw, narrow upper respiratory passages and so on!
When people play God with the domestic cat and mould the cat as if they are moulding clay when making a vase, they are going to undo all the great things that nature created.
Michael
This, also, is down to an over-keenness when it comes to breeding Persian cats to the point where they are bred too closely and where the interpretation of the breed standard is exaggerated. All to the detriment of the cat’s health. I’ll leave it there because this is about the deceptive floof, an amusing concept on a not quite so amusing cat from a health standpoint.
