Traditional Doll Face Persian Cat

I’m not going to revisit the same territory and talk about the transformation again but I think it would be useful to make a comparison of some breed standards to see if an association accepts the Traditional Doll Face Persian cat currently or is this cat still barred from competition. And if so, is it because of the breed standards or the judges’ interpretation of it. In other words do the various breed standards technically allow the traditional to win shows but the judges don’t? It also gives me the excuse to show a number the traditional Pesian cat photos that are on the website at various places.

Lets start at the top, the CFA breed standard in relation to the head, which as I see it is the center of attention. As expected it asks for a massive skull with plenty of roundness. The vertical alignment in profile of the forehead, nose and chin is demanded. As I have previously suggested this forces the creation of cats with a facial anatomy that causes health problems. This goes against the underlying CFA breed standard that states, as I understand it, that no breed standard should do this.

As to the GCCF it is hard to find the breed standard (Standard of Points) on the internet so I haven’t seen it but the pictures of Persian cats that I have seen on their website are definitely more moderate and some are near the Traditional Doll Face Persian cat (perhaps they are, as there is no black and white test as far as I know).

The ACFA (American Cat Fanciers Association) follow the CFA almost to the letter (who copied who?) in relation to that most important of definitions; the appearance of the face and, yes, everything should be in vertical alignment (i.e. flat face Ultra typed Persians only, please). So, there is no doubt that a traditional Persian will not succeed.

WCF (World Cat Federation) leave the choice open as to whether a judge leans towards the flat faced or more moderate faced Persian. They seem to put a restriction on the development of an extreme look by saying that the upper edge of the nose leather should not be above the lower edge of the eye (i.e. the nose should be below the eyes! – not always the case with Ultra Persians)

Moving on – FIFe follow the moderate route and it seems make a point of it. They state that the head should be well balanced and the nose should not be a snub nose. The nose bridge and leather (end of nose) should be wide and the nostrils should do their job, namely allow a free passage of air. I can’t see a problem with the Traditional Doll Face Persian cat competing in competition but does this happen and if so does she win? Well, I don’t think they do, so it seems the judges are leaning towards CFA standards. If I am wrong that’s fine, just tell everyone and correct it. You can do that on this page: Have a Say.

Conclusion: Some breed standards support the extreme flat faced appearance and some do not. If not, the judging across the board favors the Ultra Persian appearance.

From Traditional Doll Face Persian cat to Pictures of Persian cats

Traditional Doll Face Persian cat – Photographs in the slide show: these are by three sources (a) Helmi Flick with her express permission (b) Daniëlle Rozeboom with her express permission and (c) under creative commons licenses granted by Flickr photographers.

Photograph in middle of page: pubished under a creative commons license = Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License allowing for modification. This is a cropped version to fit the pages layout.