Here are some great pictures of cats: Off-white ‘Poodle cat’ kittens. People call them Poodle cats but they are Selkirk Rex cats if you want to be more precise. I think these kittens are particularly good examples. The fur is amazingly sheep-like because it is off-white in color. I guess you could call them sheep cats too. The crinkly/curly fur is caused by a genetic mutation that just happened. Nature went wrong many years ago when a gene was copied inaccurately. That’s a genetic mutation.
And what happens is that someone spots a stray cat with poodle-like fur and likes it. A cat breeder gets to hear about it and bingo….you have the beginnings of a new cat breed. It is a long journey for the breeder to achieve acceptance of the breed from the cat associations and then the public. It takes many years and there is no guarantee that the public will like the breed enough to make it popular. The Selkirk Rex is not that popular relative to, for example, the Persian or the Maine Coon to cite two other mainstream breeds. They make interesting and good photographs though. And I really like the breed. Although I always adopt rescue cats.
Some links to more poodle cat pages
P.S. There was some confusion about the use of the term “Poodle cat”. This is because there is a rare cat breed, much rarer than the Selkirk Rex, which is also referred to as a “Poodle cat”. You can read about this cat by clicking here. This is a cat breed which is actually named Poodle Cat. It, too, has curly hair. Click here to read about it.
