Sadly, shelters often feel obliged to list animals as "part-Xbreed" in order to home them. Anything semi-longhaired is then sold as part MC or Persian or Newf or Shih Tzu.Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45
In this case, I would not even suggest MC as a breed in the background.
Ah! very interesting. I was thinking of Leslie Lyons' work at UC Davis. Looking it up again now, I see how right you are ...Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45
And cats really are not as different as dogs with genetics, so IMO it would be more unreliable to determine a "breed" in cats, then you can in dogs.
That is just stupid IMO. If I wouldn't be involved with pedigreed cats, I would definitely get a basic DSH/DLH rather than *mix of this and that*-breed. To me all those 'partly purebreds' are no accidents.. Things may be different in other parts of the world, but over here most of those 'this x that' litters are made intentionally to get some money out of them and it pisses me off big time. Sorry about the rant.Originally Posted by RawVixen
Sadly, shelters often feel obliged to list animals as "part-Xbreed" in order to home them. Anything semi-longhaired is then sold as part MC or Persian or Newf or Shih Tzu.
While it's not possible to tell any given cat's breed(s) genetically like for dogs, what Dr Lyons et al HAVE found is that cats from the Thai-Malay peninsula are genetically quite different from the rest of the cats in the world. This of course is the origin of the Siamese, Burmese, Tonkinese, Korat and Khao Manee. Some of us always suspected those meezers were different but now there is scientific data backing it. It's thought that due to the peninsula and the mountains in the north, the cats developed in isolation for a long long time. And also they recently have discovered that cats from Thailand show more genetic diversity by far than any other cats they have studied.Originally Posted by RawVixen
Ah! very interesting. I was thinking of Leslie Lyons' work at UC Davis. Looking it up again now, I see how right you are ...
http://www.ucdavis.edu/spotlight/0208/cats.html
It is bizarre the schizo attitude some people have toward breeds and breeders. If they hate the people preserving the breeds why do they so much want to believe their cat is a breed cat?Originally Posted by RawVixen
I'd think that the practice of faux-labeling shelter cats further devalues moggies. My past cats were retired show cats, and I found it annoying to hear "oh my neighbour has a ____ too!" then in the next breath be told that breeding is evil etc. Which way do they want it?