Long hair cats

These are the most popular long hair cats judged by a long running poll on this website, together with links to pages that have lots of great Helmi Flick photographs and lots of detail. The cats listed her have hair that is longer than short haired cats but the length will vary and some could better be described as medium-long haired.

Maine Coon
The 2nd most popular cat after the Siamese. This is an all American cat of distinction. Long and flexible, fine character and at the show cat level these are very impressive cats indeed. There is a wide range of coat colors and patterns. There are regrettably one or two health concerns with this breed, which is sad.

Persian
This cat breed is the 5th most popular on my site's poll. They used to say that the Persian was the most popular cat breed in the USA. I think that that is no longer true but I could be wrong. If I am correct it could be because of the transition to the flat face causing health problems. This cat has very long hair. The long hair gene is indicated by the letter l. It allows the hair to grow for a longer time so it becomes longer. Breeders like long hair to be soft and silky. The achieve this by selective breeding to bring into effect polygenes. These genes also create a fuller coat of fine texture. Exhibition long hair cats have particularly long hair. It is longer than that which is on randomly bred or naturally occurring long hair cats. Persian breeders say that this cat should be an indoor cat because of the long hair partly.

Ragdoll
This cat breed is 7th on the poll. Please note that there are about 70 cat breeds listed so 7th equates to a place in the top 10% of all mainstream cat breeds. The three most important things about this breed are (a) the breed originates in "ordinary" house cats and was developed from there and (b) the founding breeder, Ann Baker, a Californian, caused some upset by trying to retain rights to the breed (this is almost unique in the Cat Fancy) and (c) the Ragdoll cat character is like any other cat in terms of character but perhaps a little more laid back than some such as the Sphynx for example. This is a pointed long hair cat. This cat, although long haired, requires less maintenance as there is no undercoat (down hairs). This separates this cat out from some other long hair cats.

Himalayan
This breed is 9th in the poll. This is a long haired Persian called by a different name. Long hair cats need more maintenance generally.


Norwegian Forest Cat
This breed is 10th in the poll. This cat was and still is a standard domestic cat in Norway. In 1930 it was decided that this cat was too good looking to remain a mixed-breed cat. Stardom beckoned and the Norwegian Forest Cat became a purebred pedigree cat. There are some fantastic looking NFCs. They are built for the snow, cold and the forest. This means they are great tree climbers - fearless. This is one of the great long hair cats.

Long Hair cats to home page