Herman was the bug-eyed overbred Exotic Shorthair cat (a shorthaired Persian) who, due to his odd appearance, became one of those much heralded and celebrated online cat celebrities with many thousands of followers on Instagram and all the other social media sites that are popular. Herman was known for his big eyes and loving nature. He passed away 25.05.2019 (as reported on Instagram). We are not told the cause of death. It’d be interesting to know.
Associated breeding issues in dogs.
The thing is this: I have always disliked overbred cats because it creates unnaturalness, often to the detriment of the cat’s health and welfare. And I believe that Herman was overbred. Too much inbreeding. His brothers are still alive and they look relatively normal. Perhaps that is why they are alive and Herman is dead.
It is a trade-off: popular with humans but bad for the cat. The cat’s naturally evolved, wonderful anatomy is reshaped by human hand and the result is, wait for it: peculiar or odd.
And people like peculiar or odd or strange or anything that is abnormal because people are bored. Boredom is one of the great enemies of the human. It leads us to do bad things sometimes.
You can see that Herman has his tongue hanging out a lot. This is like some French Bulldogs. They have similar, squashed faces. It must be because the poor thing can’t breathe normally through his nose. Look at his nose: squashed into oblivion. And I don’t think his jaws were aligned properly, once again due to poor breeding.
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His eyes were incredible. They were huge and out on stalks. I wonder if this caused problems of dryness and other health issues. I may lead to cornea health issues as the eyes can no longer clean themselves. I’d expect the eyelid to have trouble covering the eye when the cat blinks.
Herman lived in Denmark with Shirley. He was cute and he had a nice character. I presume that he was bred in Denmark. I also don’t like the way Shirley dressed him up in clothes. I know a lot of people like this but I am a purist and I like the beauty in the natural anatomy of the domestic cat.
SOME MORE ON THE EXOTIC SH:
