You might like to know why the Sphynx cat is regarded as a product of torture breeding in Germany. In Germany is illegal to breed animals that will suffer because of misguided breeding practices. The German word is: Qualzucht. Why are all other countries lagging behind Germany on this? Answers on a postcard please 😹😉.
A forum on the Sphynx cat elucidates the reason why this popular cat breed is illegal in Germany. Normally, the Sphynx cat doesn’t have whiskers or they are sparse and short. They are born with fragile, brittle whiskers which break off.
Domestic cats need their whiskers. Nature, through evolution, gave domestic cat’s whiskers for a good reason. There are incredibly sensitive organs. They can feel the air currents. They can help guide a cat in the dark. They assist with balance and they can feel a prey animal as if they were fingers after it has been captured.
In short, cat whiskers are an important part of their anatomy and they’ve got to have them and if breeding removes them, it is considered torture breeding in Germany.
That’s what the forum says but there are other reasons to. This is a hairless cat. Cats need coats to keep them warm. Nature gave them coats for that obvious reason: protection from the weather. To protect their skin from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. Remove the coat and you create secondary problems. The sebaceous glands in the skin produce oils which have nowhere to go because there’s no coat.
The oils stay on the skin and attract dirt and grime. That’s why Sphynx cat owners have to wipe their cats clean regularly.
And to this list, we have to add the recent knowledge that Sphynx cats have an average lifespan of 6.68 years according to a study. This is an incredibly short average lifespan. It’s indicative of genetically inherited health problems, the most important of which for this breed is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a heart disease which causes the thickening of the left ventricle which results in an untimely death. And the disease can start quite young, within the first year of life.
Of course, Sphynx cat owners object to the concept of torture breeding applying to their cat but I’m afraid they don’t have a leg to stand on.
What I’ve said, however, is undermined by the fact that in Germany there are Sphynx cat breeders! Clearly, enforcement of this law is sparse and patchy. On the forum that I mention, they referred to a Sphynx cat breeder in Germany. Strange don’t you think?
But like all countries, Germany has the usual difficulties in enforcing laws. The enforcement of laws with respect to domestic cats can be difficult. My mind turns to Australia where they like to impose laws on domestic cat ownership in order to protect wildlife such as obligatory micro-chipping. How do enforce obligatory micro-chipping? You’ve got to know where the cats are and check that they been micro-chipped. Vets can assist but they’ll have to report miscreate owners who bring their pets to their clinics to the authorities. Are they happy with that?
Although in the UK micro-chipping will be mandatory. “From 10 June 2024, cats in England will need to be microchipped and registered on a database by the time they’re 20 weeks old” (UK government website).
I have digressed. It appears that the main reason why the Sphynx cat is banned under the torture breeding principles of Germany is because they don’t have whiskers.
RELATED: Qualzucht – Torture Breeding
