Monday 8 August 2011

Wikipedia is wrong in the first sentence on the Siamese cat

Wikipedia's first sentence on the Siamese cat is: "The Siamese is one of the first distinctly recognized breeds of Oriental cat."

The word "oriental' in this instance means the slender body shape that cat fanciers describe as oriental.

However, the Siamese cat is not meant to be oriental in shape. The cat breeders took it upon themselves to decide that the Siamese cat is meant to be slender but it is not. They selectively bred the Siamese over 50 years since the the mid-1900s to change the cat's appearance from a normal looking cat to one that is unnaturally slender. The oriental shape does not occur naturally anywhere.

The original Siamese cats were not slender but of normal appearance or to use cat fancy language "semi-cobby" in body shape.

So the Wikipedia authors have it wrong in the first sentence. They are following the pack. It was probably written by an American Siamese cat breeder, probably a CFA affiliated Siamese cat breeder.

You cannot always trust Wikipedia to provide objective information.

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