The Cat Handbook. Karen Leigh Davis
jockey or someone other than a qualified judge. Often, the so-called judge considered it more fun to choose the meanest, fattest, or strangest-looking cat, a practice that actually demeaned the mixed-breed cat. The Happy Household Pet Cat Club, founded in 1968, and a group of its exhibitors from the Sacramento, California, area were instrumental in changing this by lobbying for fairer standards and equality in judging for HHPs. As a result, TICA was the first association to license HHP specialty judges.
Today, the awards and show procedures for HHP competition are more in line with purebred competition. TICA, ACFA, CFF, AACE, UFO, and TCA also maintain registries for nonpedigreed household pets. The world’s largest association, CFA, does not register non-purebreds, but many CFA-sponsored shows and clubs do have household pet categories that also award year-end honors to the top winners. The Happy Household Pet Cat Club, an international organization open to all feline fanciers, also registers random-bred cats, which allows its members to submit cat show scores and claim titles.
How Cat Breeds Get Recognized
A breed is a group of cats that share predictable characteristics in conformation, coat type, color, and temperament. Representatives of a particular breed are judged against a written standard of perfection, called the breed standard, which describes the common characteristics that are considered ideal for the breed.
Some breeds originate in a particular geographic region. The Turkish Angora and the Turkish Van are native to Turkey, as their names imply, and the Siamese cat originated in Siam, now called Thailand. But other breeds, like the Somali, may be named for regions to which they have no real ties. The Somali, often described as a longhaired Abyssinian, was named after modern-day Somalia, also known as Ethiopia, but the breed does not hail from that part of the world. Rather, the name was chosen symbolically, because Somalia borders the ancient African kingdom of Abyssinia, for which the Somali’s sister breed, the Abyssinian, was named. There again, the Abyssinian cat is named, not for its national origin (because no one is certain where the Aby really came from), but for the first such cat shown in England, a cat named Zula that was imported from Abyssinia around 1868.
New breeds, or new varieties and colors of existing ones, are being developed all the time. Some breeds, like the short-legged Munchkin, may begin as spontaneous genetic mutations, while others are created by crossbreeding established breeds. For example, the snub-nosed Exotic Shorthair, often called the “lazy man’s Persian” because of its short, low-maintenance coat, is the hybrid result of crossing two recognized breeds, the American Shorthair and the Persian.
Whatever the origin, the process of achieving recognition among the cat fancy for each new breed is typically a long and arduous task that can take years. The rules for acceptance vary among the cat fancy associations, but generally, proponents of a new breed start by applying for registration. Once cats are accepted for registration, a certain number have to be registered over a period of time before they can begin showing in noncompetitive, miscellaneous, or nonchampionship classes for experimental breeds and colors. Called Any Other Variety (AOV) or New Breeds and Colors (NBC), such classes are designed specifically for new breeds with new standards and for pedigreed cats that do not conform in some way, usually in color or coat length, to their current breed standard. In this prechampionship phase, new breeds hold provisional status and are judged according to a provisional standard. Proponents of the new breed must see that a certain number of cats continue to be registered and shown before full recognition is granted. Achieving the final step, championship status, requires the concerted effort of many breeders over a period of time before their cats become eligible to compete for points and awards in championship classes.
The Breeds
The chart beginning on page 9 lists the breeds currently recognized in North America by one or more of the cat-registering associations. Most of the breeds hold championship status in various associations, which means they can compete at shows for awards and titles. Other breeds, being new or experimental, may be accepted for registration and shown in new breed and color classes, or they may hold provisional status until they can compete in championship classes.
Long- and Shorthaired Cats
The world has more shorthaired cats than longhairs for a sound, scientific reason. In the absence of purposeful or isolated breeding, natural selection in most regions seems to have tipped the odds in favor of the shorthaired cat over the longhaired variety. This is because the gene that produces a short coat is dominant, while the gene for a long coat is always recessive. Dominant genes are so named because they tend to suppress or mask the qualities of any recessive genes that may be present.
A kitten inherits one gene for coat length from each parent. This means that, to be born with short hair, a kitten has to inherit a dominant gene for this trait from at least one parent. To be born with long hair, a kitten must inherit two recessive genes for this trait—one from each parent. These basic genetic principles apply to any breed.
The kitten that inherits a short-haired gene from one parent and a longhaired gene from the other will be a shorthaired cat, even though he carries a hidden or unexpressed longhair gene. Due to the dominance of the shorthaired gene, the gene for long hair is not expressed. However, a shorthaired cat that carries both types of genes is capable of producing either short- or longhaired offspring when paired with a mate carrying like genes. Cats that carry genes for both long and short hair are genetically heterozygous.
| Cat Breeds | |
| Abyssinian | A slender, shorthaired breed famous for its "ticked" or agouti coat |
| American Curl | Shorthaired and longhaired varieties that sport ears that curl backward |
| American Bobtail | A naturally occurring short-tailed cat that comes in all colors |
| American Shorthair | Formerly the Domestic Shorthair, with plush, short fur and a rounded face |
| American Wirehair | Similar to the American Shorthair, except for its coarse, crimped, springy, wiry coat |
| Balinese | The longhaired version of the Siamese cat |
| Bengal | A spotted, man-made hybrid resulting from an Asian leopard cat-domestic cat cross |
| Birman | Called the Sacred Cat of Burma, a longhaired, pointed breed that has four white paws |
| Bombay | A jet black, shorthaired breed with gold or coppercolored eyes |
| British Shorthair | Great Britain’s native shorthaired cat that comes in many colors, most commonly blue |
| Burmese | "Copper Cat" from Burma that is noted for its glossy, rich, dark brown, short coat |
| California Spangled | A shorthaired spotted cat that resembles a miniature leopard |
| Chartreux | A blue-gray-colored, short-coated cat known as the "smiling cat of France" |
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Chausie
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