This is another really nice kitten photograph and an unusual one which is why I have selected it for this page. It comes from what I believe to be a Selkirk Rex cat breeder perhaps in Italy. They have an Instagram page and their username is: gina_and_gepetto.
The Selkirk Rex is, in my opinion, gaining in popularity. The reason? The coat is unusual because we are so used to seeing a standard, smooth domestic cat coat. I am surprised, to be honest, why this cat hasn’t been more popular in the past because I think they look fantastic. They are described as a cat in sheep’s clothes.
I have some pages on this cat breed (see above and there are more – please search) so I won’t discuss it too much here but just say that the breed is one of three breeds of Rex cats. The word “Rex” describes a curly coat. The coat is the result of a dominant gene mutation which results in 50% of the offspring of a mating between a cat and this breed and a non-curly coated cat being curly coated.
The breed started in 1987 in Montana, USA. The foundation cat was a kitten in the litter of a rescue cat. She was taken in by a Persian cat breeder, Jeri Newman who named this original Selkirk Rex Miss DePesto. The name “Selkirk” comes from a mountain range in in British Columbia which extends into the states of Washington and Idaho in the USA. Montana is an adjacent state so Jeri would have been very aware of this range of mountains.
