The reason why cat owners abandon purebred, pedigree cats is essentially the same reason why people abandon random bred cats. They are not committed to keeping their cat. There are added reasons why an owner of a purebred cat might abandon their cat. Such an owner may be more interested in the way their cat looks. These people are more likely to be involved with appearance generally, which means they may well have a house that looks wonderful.
They may treat a cat as an adornment and not as a companion animal. Cats can create some mess, which is why Sarah Hartwell’s website is called messybeast.com.
Mess for a person who is interested in the appearance of their home is unwelcome. Their furniture might get scratched. They may declaw their cat. Then the relationship between cat and owner may start to hit the rocks if the declawing operation causes a detrimental change in the cat’s character. Abandonment may follow.
In short, if a person who buys a cat from a breeder is too heavily focused on appearance and not the practicalities of cat caretaking then the chances of abandonment are higher.
True cat lovers like all cats equally. They usually, nearly always in fact, look after non-pedigree cats for the simple reason that there is always a moggie cat there to be adopted. As Sarah Hartwell said to me:
Cats just happen
Cats turn up and a person who really cares and who will make an excellent cat caretaker will take in a cat that just turns up. The person who likes pedigree cats will not respond in the same way.
There could, in fact, be more pedigree cats in shelters than there are already. The reason why there are not is because they are expensive and relatively rare compared to pedigree dogs. However, it appears that there are quite a good number of relinquished pedigree cats in shelters.
I’ll make a guess and state that a big reason why some pedigree cats are in shelters is because they were declawed and as a result their behavior deteriorated. They became defensive due to feeling insecure and bite defensively more than usual.
Another reason for dumping a cat which is exclusively to do with pedigree cats is extreme breeding. Flat-faced Persians need a lot of grooming to keep the coat from knotting and they have inherent health issues – breathing and tear duct overflow staining the face. They are also said to have a more nervous disposition that other cats. This leads to a higher rate of inappropriate elimination. Another negative to owning a Persian is that over a third of all cats of this breed develop polycystic kidney disease (PKD). All these factors are unique to the modern Persian and all of them increase the risk of relinquishment.
You’ll find that pedigree cats are, on average, slightly less healthy than random bred cats. That means more worry and higher vet bills; another reason for dumping a cat.
The reason why an individual person abandons his/her purebred cat is because she is the wrong people to keep a cat and some of these breeds present additional caretaking responsibilities and demands over random bred cats (moggies).
It is important that people who want to buy a pedigree cat do their research first; work out costs and get a feel for the realities. Ask yourself some tough questions. Then, before buying, the person should commit to keeping their cat for life. The stage before adopting a cat is the most important and far more important than some people think.
Are the proportion of pure-bred cats in shelters the same as the proportion of pure-bred cats overall? I don’t think we have a firm idea as to the proportion of pure-bred cats but my guess is the proportion in shelters reflects the proportion in homes. If I am correct being purebred makes little difference to whether a cat is dumped or not.
Original photo on Flickr
Your right. It is not just the buyers, some breeders seemed to have lost (or never had) a moral approach to breeding. I remember a lady at a cat show saying that newborn kittens are not really kittens so they can be killed immediately if they were not up to scratch.
I have seen quite a few examples of pedigree cat owners and breeders who really do not give a hoot about their cats per se. This explains the prevalence of inbreeding in the quest to maintain a “look” or aspire to the standard. This is the thinking behind the pedigrees which certainly ensure inbreeding and proliferation of genetic problems. That doesn’t matter. What is important to them is the glamour and self-satisfaction of their cats winning all kinds of rosettes, cups, championship status , etc. They think that this reflects on their special abilities as a breeder or owner when in fact they are just using their cats as pawns for self-glorification. This has gone wildly wrong in several breeds including the Turkish Angora and the Persian. All their hard work has produced cats that are far less attractive than the originals. If their cats are not up to scratch vis a vie the standard and don’t do well at shows, they are eventually disposed of or just disappear off the map. I assume this occurs quite often because there are societies that specialise in pedigree cat rescue.
LOL. You’d be a nightmare over there. Being almost 65 myself (!)….I have become sort of…what is the word….annured to stuff like this. Abandoning cats including pure-bred cats is pretty much routine. Although we should be cautious not to get a distorted impression. I am sure most pure-bred cat owners are good and caring.
She was rescued by Rocky Mountain Feline Rescue. My impression of them is that they are good, very good.
Love your comments. Challenging 🙂 The caption is taken verbatim from the original Flickr photo caption. The link to the original picture is at the base of the articke. I found it strange. i believe that it should mean a litter of kittens that were all 14 days old when found. That is my interpretation.
…14 kittens who were a day old?
or
….kittens who were 14 days old?
MY god – with 14 day old kittens – that is crazy and incredibly cruel – beyond words cruel – just a day old, can you imagine. I would personally finish the person who did that and make them wish they never got a cat to begin with. 14!
I am going to make a hopeful assumption based on tat image which is that since they know what happened it probably means that Flower and her kittens were rescued. Otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing the picture to begin with since nobody would have known.
That is such a cruel thing to do. I feel like flying over to the US – I’ve got a US passport after all – and going around being some kind of vigilante on behalf of cats. I would likely get myself arrested within a very short time.