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What breed is my cat
- Thread starter wolf7girl
- Start Date
He is very cute, but he is no partuclar breed. Like 99% of the cats in the world, he is what we call a Domestic Shorthair.
People get very confused about cat breeds, thinking they are like dogs - that every one must be a breed or at least a breed cross. But that is not so in felines. This is because dogs have been bred for thousands of years, with specific purpose or appearance in mind, so now there are hundreds of very diiferent looking breeds. People only began to deliberately breed cats for specific traits a couple of hundred years ago. Before that, cats evolved naturally as they spread around the world, developing different characteristics to cope with their environment. So we have long-haired, larger cats who come from northern forests, thinner, light-coloured cats with dark extremities who developed in hot conditions, cats with longer legs who needed to run fast to survive, and even some cats who love water, no one is quite sure why. There were also natural chance mutations that gave us the original tailless and hairless cats. So the ancestors of our Persians, Siamese, Maine Coons, Manx, Russian Blues, and all the rest of the 'breed' cats were originally selected from the wild population and interbred to what we have today. It is the same with colours - the original African wild cats that were the ancestors of all our domestic cats were tabby in style and colour, and this remains the most common colour pattern. The vast majority of our domestic cats today have no connection with any 'breed' but may well share common genes with them. So your little cat may show characteristics of a number of 'breed' cats without being one.
People get very confused about cat breeds, thinking they are like dogs - that every one must be a breed or at least a breed cross. But that is not so in felines. This is because dogs have been bred for thousands of years, with specific purpose or appearance in mind, so now there are hundreds of very diiferent looking breeds. People only began to deliberately breed cats for specific traits a couple of hundred years ago. Before that, cats evolved naturally as they spread around the world, developing different characteristics to cope with their environment. So we have long-haired, larger cats who come from northern forests, thinner, light-coloured cats with dark extremities who developed in hot conditions, cats with longer legs who needed to run fast to survive, and even some cats who love water, no one is quite sure why. There were also natural chance mutations that gave us the original tailless and hairless cats. So the ancestors of our Persians, Siamese, Maine Coons, Manx, Russian Blues, and all the rest of the 'breed' cats were originally selected from the wild population and interbred to what we have today. It is the same with colours - the original African wild cats that were the ancestors of all our domestic cats were tabby in style and colour, and this remains the most common colour pattern. The vast majority of our domestic cats today have no connection with any 'breed' but may well share common genes with them. So your little cat may show characteristics of a number of 'breed' cats without being one.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #3
So he is a medium hair. Or he is just kitten fluffy. These big paws are prob a kitten thing.
You see easiest on the tail if they are medium hair or longish shorthair - bushy tail = medium - or longhair.
