cat’s ancestry is, in most cases, unknown and unverifiable.
Today, the more politically correct and probably the more accurate term for cats of uncertain ancestry is random bred. Language purists may argue that the term mixed breed more properly means that at least two recognized breeds have been mixed or crossbred—say, a purebred Persian was mated with an American Shorthair, or a Russian Blue was crossed with an Abyssinian to produce offspring. Yet, the more common reference—mixed breed—remains well understood by the general populace to mean a little bit of this and a little dash of that, with who knows what else added for extra flair.
First cat show: With the rise of the cat fancy came the cat shows. Harrison Weir staged the first cat show in 1871 at London’s Crystal Palace. Weir also developed the first breed standards by which cats were judged in those days and served as president of Great Britain’s first national cat club, which issued the first feline stud book in the late 1800s.
The United States was quick to follow Great Britain’s lead, as cat exhibits and judgings have taken place here since the 1870s. But an official all-breed show held in 1895 at New York’s Madison Square Garden marked the real beginning of interest among North American cat fanciers. In 1899 the first and oldest U.S. cat registry, the American Cat Association (ACA), was formed to keep records.
Today, numerous cat-registering associations exist in North America. They include the Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA), the American Cat Fanciers’ Association (ACFA), the International Cat Association (TICA), the Cat Fanciers’ Federation (CFF), the American Association of Cat Enthusiasts (AACE), the National Cat Fanciers’ Association (NCFA), the United Feline Organization (UFO), the Canadian Cat Association (CCA), and the Traditional Cat Association (TCA). Each association has its own show rules and breed standards, but all maintain stud books, register purebred cats, and verify pedigrees. Most of them also charter clubs, sanction shows, and present awards and titles. CFA, incorporated in 1919, is the world’s largest registry of pedigreed cats, sponsoring approximately 400 shows a year across the United States and internationally through its more than 650 member clubs.
While preference is given to purebred cats in the cat show world, most associations sponsor house-
Show Your Cat
Whether you have a purebred or a random-bred household pet that you want to show, you typically must register the cat with the association sanctioning the event. The association uses the registration information to score and track awards. For more information on showing your cat, please see pages 178-187.
hold pet (HHP) categories in which random-bred cats and kittens can compete and earn awards (see page 182). HHP classes existed as early as the mid-1960s, but they were primarily sideshows to the purebred competition, judged by a local disc 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
