Cat Chit Chat

Photo copyright Dani Rozeboom Here's a list of PA Persian Cat Breeders . The picture above is of a Traditional Persian (see details below). The breeders listed breed Ultra Persians (I expect), although I have not checked that out. Ultra Persians have more extreme looks including flat faces. I don't have first hand knowledge of these breeders and you should always visit a cattery . Some have websites. They give some clues as to the efficiency of the business. They are only clues as a visit is a must. One final thing, catteries eventually stop trading and I have not tested these websites or rung around so some may not be open for business although that is unlikely: 1. Sybil Cattery , Pocono Mountains and run by Sylvia Bruckman. They specialize in bicolor. Visit the cattery for details http://www.sybilcats.com. 2. Byhishands , located New Freedom and managed by Susan Daniels. Website: http://www.byhishands.com 3. Karkens , located Fairless Hills, near Philadelphia an

Photo by Dani of a traditional Persian In addition to Long Haired Cat Breeds you've got medium-long haired cats and I'll include those in this discussion. The picture above is of Faolan , a truly fantastic Orange Traditional Persian cat who lives with Dani Rozeboom who runs the Cattery Yeri Shaes and who is a fine photographer as well as a website builder (superb websites). A talented woman surrounded by fabulous cats. One cat comes straight to mind as a cat that has been bred with a round face, extremely stubby nose and sometimes incredibly long fur, the Ultra Persian . This is a cat that the experts say has to remain indoor otherwise his or her fur gets too messy. As for grooming, get a good set of grooming brushes and combs 'cus your goin to need 'em. Obviously, it is essential to groom a long-haired cat religiously. But this begs the question, is it natural for a cat to have such long hair? If you look at all the small wild cats; two classics are the Scottish

Burmilla cat photograph copyright skoop reproduced under a creative commons license. The Burmilla is a cat breed that I had not heard of until I built the pictures of cats website . It is a rare cat but then again so are a lot of the purebred cats. I have covered the origins. What about the appearance of this cat? We know the founding cats are Burmese and Chinchilla. The Chinchilla is in fact a Persian cat with a particular coat type. It is interesting to consider which genes the Burmilla inherited from each founding cat that are presented in the Burmilla's appearance. The Chinchilla gave this cat its silver shaded coat by way of the dominant silver ( I ) gene. This cat also inherited the Agouti ( A ) gene from the Chinchilla. The Agouti gene produces the tabby pattern seen so commonly on a wide range of purebred and mixed breed cats and also wild cats. It provides good camouflage for wild cats. The Agouti gene gives the Burmilla its tipped coat but the tabby markings

Cat Breed Characteristics - all cats including Spooky above can jump extremely well (almost all, I mean, my girl cat is too fat). That is a characteristic that transcends cat breeds. Almost all characteristics do. Photograph is copyright Gail S and is reproduced under creative commons license. Cat Breed Characteristics is a something that interests me. This is a post about the topic at a general level. If you'd like to see all the breeds and read about their origins, history, character and appearance I'd advise clicking here and going to the top of the navigation bar. Or use the navigation bar on this website. There are links to all the breeds. People outside the cat fancy (cat lovers and cat breeders etc.) might think that the different cat breeds are separated by appearance and character. The truth is that cat breeders are mainly concerned with the appearance of the cat breed that they are breeding and that the cat is socialized (able to behave well in human company).

Non-shedding cat breeds are a myth. It is obviously natural to shed hair. Humans do it as well. One of the biggest downsides of living with a cat is the hair, it's everywhere. You get used to hoovering it up though. Cats can be a bit messy. Some (but few) cat breeds shed less than others. The first group of cats that come to mind are the hairless cats :). Simple really isn't it. Even hairless cats have some (but very little and downy) hair. Logic dictates though that if a cat has less hair there is less to shed. There are no non-shedding cat breeds just as there are no totally hypoallergenic cats despite claims to the contrary (although Allerca cats - Life Style Pets Inc. claim their cats, the Ashera GD, Allerca GD and Chakan GD are hypoallergenic). The hairless cat breeds are the Sphynx, Don Sphynx and Peterbald (semi-hairless). These are all rare cats and realistically indoor cats. The Rex cats shed less than normal due to the nature of their coat. Cats normally have thr

House cat breeds - Doll Face Persian - photograph copyright Dani Rozeboom . Dani runs a cattery, Yeri Shaes (named after a superb Persian named Yeri ). She has an enclosed garden as far as I can tell. Dani is a fine (one of the best) cat photographers and her cats are fabulous. Please use the navigation bar on the main site to see a list of purebred cat. A search for House Cat Breeds probably means the person is looking for a domestic cat that is suited to permanent indoor living. Keeping cats indoors in far more common in the USA than the UK (and perhaps on the Continent in Europe). Although some people assume that it is OK to keep a cat indoors, I discuss whether this is OK . It is almost accepted by many that their cat will never go out and I guess cats get used to it. The best solution, though, is an enclosure and they aren't that expensive. I let my cat go out (without an enclosure) because she is old, nervous and a bit scared and therefore doesn't go far. The

Burmilla Origin and History -- I'll open up with a post on the origins and history of this cat in a style that I hope suits visitors. There is often a lot written on the Internet but for me in any event a lot of it is a little verbose. Here's the history in detail of the Burmilla: 1981 - Miranda Bickford-Smith buys a Chinchilla Persian for her husband. The cat's name is Jemari Sanquist. Burmilla cat copyright jtlondon under CC 1981 (early) - Before Jerami is to be neutered he meets by accident a lilac Burmese female (not sure where this happened) called Bambino Lilac Fabergé. One website says that both the Chinchilla Persian and the Burmese female were waiting to be breed in the same building ("nearby rooms"). A cleaner inadvertently left the door (doors?) open and voila. Sounds a bit hazy that. 1981 - September 11th - Four black shaded silver females born to the above accidental mating. They quickly developed a foreign type and a short dense coat. Thérèse

Abyssinian cat - Rico - a rescued (National Abyssinian Rescue, U.S) Aby and a charming and handsome boy cat photographed by his foster mum editrx (photograph copyright editrx ). The Abyssinian is probably the best cat breed. Rico is three years old in this picture and small, weighing just 5 lbs. What is a cat breed selector ? Can you have such a thing? I'm not sure you can. I don't think that you can have a computer program that selects a cat breed for you as there are probably too many variables. In any event you need to look at the cat breed to get a good idea of appearance, which means looking through lots of pictures of cats. The idea of pushing buttons and getting the name of a breed at the end of it is, probably, unworkable. As a substitute you can do some quick and easy research, by first looking at pictures of cat breeds. You have got to make sure that the cats that you are looking at are of the correct type (i.e. correct appearance for a cat of that breed). A lot

Raw Diet Cat Food with the proper supplements is arguably best for a cat. Why can't we buy this? Cats have a greater need than dogs and other omnivores for protein in their diet. Cats are obligate carnivores. Cats are adapted through evolution to a low carbohydrate (CHO) intake. Their saliva doesn't start the digestion process as it lacks the required enzyme. Their intestine and pancreas is the same. There are limitations to substituting plant origin food for animal origin food which are being ignored by the big manufacturers. Cats in the wild eat high protein, moderate fat and minimal CHO. Commercial cat food can lead to protein malnutrition. Cats can't adapt to lower amounts of protein in food. For cats, protein in food is required for energy as well as structural purposes. Making your own cat food. Photo in public domain. Cats have a need for increased amounts of amino acids such as taurine, arginine, methionine, cysteine. A cat's natural diet contains these

Above: Singapura photo by Helmi Flick. The smallest cat breed is fairly easy to find. First, it is commonsense that the vast majority of domestic cats are going to be of a similar size. The mixed breed cats are all medium sized cats with what I would term "normal" (i.e. to be expected of a domestic cat) appearance. They are well balanced cats, they haven't got wedgie heads or extra long legs. Although some purebred cats will be a bit on the bigger or smaller side they would normally find that happy middle ground. However, the cat fancy demands that cats be of type (the right appearance for a particular breed) and over a long period of time this objective has separated out cat breeds in terms of size making them more distinct. That said, one cat is known to be probably the smallest cat breed and it is the Singapura, otherwise known as the Drain Cat ( see one in a drain ). Thus cat is meant to be native to Singapore but they are very few in Singapore as it happens (if

Looking for a cat breed quiz? There are two on this page. Visitors' answers can be seen by clicking on this link . My answers are at the base of this form. Prefer wildcats? See: Lion Quiz Tiger Quiz First Cat Breed Quiz <p><p><p><p>Loading...</p></p></p></p> Here are my answers: 1. No. All cat breeds are one species of cat, the domestic cat, scientific name: Felis silvestrus catus or sometimes referred to as Felis catus . 2. Over 100 but many are rare and very much on the fr

Pictures of Different Cat Breeds are available in alphabetical order, listed over three pages, with links to more details and more great pictures on the main website on these pages:- Cat Breeds A-H Cat Breeds J-P Cat Breeds R-T Enjoy these pages. They are designed to provide easy access to a list of breeds so you can make comparisons quickly. The photographs on these three pages are not thumbnails so you don't have to click through on the links if you don't want to. Sure there are a lot of pictures of different cat breeds on the Internet. But I hope that you will agree that the ease of reference in combination with the best cat photography by Helmi makes the pages listed above some the best on the 'net as a starting reference point to the cat breeds. The list is comprehensive but there are still one or two breeds to go before the list is complete. That said some cat breeds are so marginal or simply variants on existing breeds to make it doubtful if it is worth dea

Sosgatinhos (S.O.S kittens) is a rescue center in Sao Paulo, Brazil run by Leila Galvão. It is very brave of her to do this and wonderful. I admire you Leila. I also admire the photography of fofurasfelinas (and I can spell her flickr name without copying and pasting :). Her real name is Giane Portal. She lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil, about 400 miles south of San Paulo. She is a designer by profession Fofurasfelinas is certainly one of the top 5 (at least) cat photographers on Flickr and there are lots of cat photographers. It also means that she is one of the best amateur cat photographers in the world. There is no doubt about that. She is also probably one of the best cat photographers, amateur or professional in the world. And I know cat photography. Anyway she is supporting the work of Sosgatinhos and so I am as I use fofurasfelinas's photographs on my website under creative commons. My site is for cat charities and I have some charities marked out. When the money comes

Selkirk Rex. Photo in public domain. What Breed is My Cat? This is a question asked by people who think they may have a purebred cat or are unsure about cat breeds generally. There are many visitors on the main site PoC, who ask about their cats. Here are just two examples: I am curious about what breed my cat is Is my cat an Egyptian Mao? (the spelling of Mao is "as is" in the post title) Two more recent examples of visitor's submissions to the main website  (at June 2010) ask if their cat is part Egyptian Mau or purebred Egyptian Mau . It seems that this is one of the breeds that people believe most represents their cat. There actually may be something in this if we look at it dispassionately as the Egyptian Mau was originally (in about 1,500 BC or so) a domesticated African wildcat. It is reasonable to assume that the genes have travelled far and wide and dispersed with other mixed bred cats over the centuries. Also people with cats that have nice spots see the Eg

The Alexa Toolbar is a free download from the Alexa website . Alexa is part of Amazon the mega sized online shopping business. The figure that you see and which is used by Alexa to rank the site is the site's position in relation in the world. It is based on the number of visitors to the site plus how many pages that they visit. This site is ranked about 300,000 at March 2008 (at Oct 1st 2008 it is ranked 120,000 - going up). This means it is the 300,000th site in the world in respect of the above criteria. Yahoo is no.1. Google is about 3 or 4. Wikipedia is about 8 or 9 and so on. The big social networking sites are ranked high as expected. This site's ranking is quite good, at March 2008, considering it is built by a single person with no outside help except SBI, who host the site. This site is a sub-domain. The Alexa method of measuring ranking is not that accurate for sites outside the top 100k. It is very hard to get inside 100k. There are about 100m+ sites in the world

Chausie cat and Macaw One domestic cat that is an intelligent cat breed is the Chausie . This is a cat that is similar in appearance to the Abyssinian as she is a wildcat (Jungle cat)/domestic cat (Abyssinian) hybrid . Indeed the Jungle cat is similar in appearance to the Abyssinian so they are perfectly matched. The intention is to produce the look and physical attributes (to a certain degree) of the wild cat with the socialization skills and personality of a domestic cat. This is the objective for all breeds of this type. Abyssinian cat photograph copyright key lime pie (Anna Wiz) At the first generation level hybrids such as the Chausie can be a bit of a handful . My research indicates that all cat lovers thinks that their cat is an intelligent cat breed. My research also indicates that of all the cat breeds it is the wildcat/domestic cat hybrids that are more likely to be more intelligent, on the face of it. But let's be honest it is all guesswork. We are not conducting scie

If you surf the Internet as I have to learn more about the domestic cat, almost all of the information relates to the science of the domestic cat. This is useful as we can learn about a companion who is treasured by so many. How often, though, do we see something on the most important topic of all our relationship with domestic cat?  California Spangled. One of the world's most expensive cats at the time. There is a convention when writing about the cat to say "it". Most cat breeders say "it" when writing or talking about cats. We call human babies in the womb, "it" sometimes. We do this because we don't know the sex.  Domestic cats play a major role in the lives of many millions of people. To describe them as "it" is disrespectful in my opinion when we know the sex. If we treat another animal as a companion (and companionship is at the heart of the relationship) we should call our companion as "she" and "he".  This is