responsible pet ownership requires knowledge and commitment. With proper care, your cat is likely to share your home and your life for at least a decade or more. A good way to prepare yourself for such a long-term commitment is to learn as much as you can about what you’re getting into beforehand. To that end, this book aims to be a useful reference.
Chapter One
A Brief History of Cats and Cat Breeds
Where Cats Came From
Charming and intelligent, cats have been humankind’s companions for centuries, long before feline enthusiasts began to selectively breed and develop purebred bloodlines. All domestic cats, from the fanciest purebred seen in show halls to the random-bred alley cat, have common origins, descending from just a few wild progenitors. Most experts agree that the modern cat, Felis catus, likely descends from a shorthaired wildcat, called Felis lybica, that roamed the plains of ancient Africa and western Asia. Many of today’s tabbies still retain the distinctive striped markings, and the lithe, muscular body of this wild ancestor.
Domestication
Unlike most wild animals, Felis lybica often chose to live near human settlements and hunt the vermin that would inevitably seek out and raid the food stores. As a result, the cat gradually accepted domestication as a reasonable trade-off for the privilege of staying close to an easy and stable food source. However, the cat was one of the last of our modern-day animals to be domesticated, lagging far behind the dog, which became man’s hunting companion some 16,000 years ago.
History generally credits the Egyptians with being among the first people to domesticate the cat approximately 3,500 to 5,000 years ago. Astute agriculturists, the Egyptians most certainly recognized the cat’s inestimable value in protecting their grain stores from rats and mice. One might imagine that the Egyptians began enticing these prowling wild felines to stay close to their settlements, perhaps by leaving scraps of food near their grain stores. As a result, taming or domestication of wild cats gradually took place. So valuable was their natural pest-control service that cats enjoyed an extended period of elevated status during this early era of human civilization. In fact, archaeological discoveries suggest that Egyptians worshipped cats as representatives of household gods. The Egyptian goddess, Bast, was often depicted as a woman with a cat’s head. So revered were these animals that symbolized their religious beliefs that Egyptians mourned the loss when a cat died, and even mummified the animal’s remains for entry into the afterlife. As one may guess, the penalty for killing a cat in those days was death.
Supporting the theory of Egyptian domestication and African origins is the fact that many of today’s domestic shorthaired cats remarkably resemble the stately Egyptian cats depicted in ancient paintings and sculptures. Likewise, some of their longhaired cousins, with their tufted ears and cheeks, retain the lynxlike look of their wild African ancestor, Felis lybica.
From Gods to Devils
Not all cultures worshipped cats as gods, however, the way the Egyptians did. By the Middle Ages, cats had spread to European nations, transported there no doubt by traders who, realizing their worth, carried specimens back to their homelands for rodent control. The thirteenth century proved to be a bleak time for cats. Along with their human associates accused of witchcraft by the Christian Church, cats became symbols of evil, devil worship, and pagan practices. As a result, they were persecuted, tortured, burned, and killed in the cruelest ways.
The Black Death: In one of the subtle ironies of history, retribution for this unjust sentencing came swiftly in the form of the Black Death, which fell upon western Europe in the mid-1300s and, within approximately four years, wiped out nearly half of the human population there. The Black Death was the bubonic plague, a deadly bacterial infection spread by disease-bearing rodents and the fleas that live off their blood. The bite of an infected flea transmitted the disease from rat to man.
In retrospect, experts have suggested that the deliberate and systematic elimination of cats from the unsanitary streets and crowded towns of Europe during this time may have helped contribute to the rapid spread of bubonic plague. Unaware of the relationship between rats, fleas, and the plague, people caught up in the misguided religious and political fervor of the time effectively reduced the cat population that was helping to keep the rodents under control. In exercising this serious error in judgment, they may have unwittingly tipped the odds in favor of a devastating epidemic.
In time, the Black Death ran its course, but not without incurring profound social changes that would signal the end of the Middle Ages. The persecution of cats eventually ended as well, as people once again came to appreciate their role in reducing rodent populations. At the dawn of a modern age, the domestic cat emerged from one of the darkest chapters in world history to begin a new journey into the heart of humankind.
Cats today: Today, cats are the most popular pets in North America, outnumbering dogs per household by nearly two to one. And while most modern house cats no longer find it necessary to serve primarily as mousers, they continue to enrich our lives as companions and in countless other ways.
Coming to America
While we know that domestic cats were in Europe by the Middle Ages, no one knows for sure exactly when they first arrived in the New World. Cats may have crossed the ocean as early as the Vikings or Columbus, but by the 1600s they were most certainly coming along for the ride with European immigrants aboard sailing ships. The breed lore of the American Shorthair cat even mentions the Mayflower as one possible mode of transport. Such a tale is not implausible, since cats were brought along on long sea voyages in those days to hunt the rats and mice that ate the ship’s food supplies. Owing to this practice, North America’s domestic cats probably are descendants of cats brought from the British Isles and other western European countries.
Upon arrival in the New World, the cats were released to extend their pest-control duties in and around the new farms and colonies being settled. For centuries, these working mousers flourished in the fields and barns of America’s pioneers, allowing natural selection to mold them and multiplying into a durable, diversified lot.
How the Cat Fancy Began
By the late 1800s people had begun to view cats as more than mere mousers. As cat shows and the cat fancy—the collective term used to describe those interested in breeding and showing purebred cats—developed first in England, then spread to America, cats gained popularity as companion animals. People even began importing exotic breeds, such as longhaired and Siamese cats, from abroad. Some of these cats were allowed to run free and mingle with the domestic shorthair stock already flourishing on native soil. As a result, kittens began to appear with varying coat lengths, color patterns, and temperaments, lending even more diversity to the melting pot.
A purebred cat, of course, is bred from members of a recognized breed or its allowable outcrosses and has a recorded ancestry. A non-pedigreed or mixed-breed cat, on the other hand, is generally understood to be the feline equivalent of what canine enthusiasts affectionately refer to as a mutt. While sometimes it may be obvious that one parent was of a specific breed,
