Showing posts with label Inbreeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inbreeding. Show all posts

Friday, 20 September 2024

List with links to 14 diseases inherited by the Peke-face Persian (infographic)

The list is pretty comprehensive. It may not be entirely complete but there are enough inherited diseases listed in this infographic to put the wind up anyone who is considering buying one of these cats. 

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I know that I am going on about this, perhaps for too long, but it is important that everybody is clear that the Peke-face Persian cat inherits these diseases because of decades of extreme breeding to create this abnormally flat face. The extreme breeding even feeds back into a disease called lordosis which is not to do with the face by the way! And it effects giving birth. Yes, the whole cat's being is affected and always negatively.

This extreme breeding affects the cat of course because they are likely to be much less happy than they would have been if they were blessed with normal anatomy. And it affects the caregiver because there's a lot more work to do in maintenance and it is likely that they will be obliged to take out a pet health insurance policy which in the modern era are quite expensive. 

And also at the moment there are a lot of people who are concerned about their financial affairs because there's been inflation and we are still, if we are honest, coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's impact is still felt.

And the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is still being felt in Europe because of the need to source oil and gas from places other than Russia. I won't go on anymore but I hope people click on the links in this Infographic which go to more infographics for easy reading explaining these diseases.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Monday, 5 December 2022

Abandoned INBRED cats due to Covid and cost-of-living crisis

NEWS AND OPINION: This story tells us how market forces due to the Covid pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis has shaped what goes on in animal rescue and before that in animal breeding and purchase. Adopting kittens and puppies should never be impacted by market forces.

The story about this form of animal abuse comes from the St Francis Animal Welfare Re-homing shelter in the UK. It is located at Sunnyside Cottage, Mortimer's Lane, Fair Oak, Eastleigh in Hampshire. I know this is a well-reported issue, but it needs to be stressed. Covid has highlighted a poor attitude by many UK citizens to pet ownership.

Boxes of cats and kittens dumped outside the shelter
Boxes of cats and kittens dumped outside the shelter. Image: the shelter.

They say that in the summer of 2022 seven "very neglected and inbred" cats arrived from a kitten mill breeder. These cats had numerous health issues according to the rescue. And cats and kittens have been dumped anonymously outside the shelter as you can see in the photograph supplied by the shelter.

Boxes of cats were found outside the shelter. Three of the cats passed away. Two were kept by the shelter but they had severe heart murmurs.

Surge in demand during Covid leading to kitten mills

The information here then is that during Covid-19 there was a surge in demand for kittens and puppies because people were stuck at home on furlough doing nothing.

This surge in demand resulted in a surge in backstreet breeders in the UK producing kittens or the importation from Eastern Europe of puppies from puppy mills. And now, post-Covid, we have the cost-of-living crisis due to high inflation which in turn is mainly due to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Surge in abandonment of kittens and puppies post-Covid and due to high inflation

The cost-of-living crisis has resulted in people giving up their cats and dogs because they can't afford to keep them.

And so, there is a surge in abandoned cats and dogs some of whom find their way to the St Francis Animal Welfare shelter. And they, as you can see, report on inbred kittens which clearly indicates very poor breeding practices with mothers mating with offspring for example and this happening numerous times in uncontrolled breeding or forced breeding with no concern for health.

The manager at the shelter, Helen Shaw, said that they've seen "some of the worst cases of inbreeding". And they've got 40 cats waiting to come into the rescue which is four times the normal number.

Helen rightly says that the Covid-19 pandemic is a major factor in the breeding of the kittens. And the abandonment of kittens and cats is due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Both the adoption and the abandonment are due to impulsive purchasing and impulsive throwing away of sentient creatures due to market forces created by these big events.

Bad breeders and equally bad customers

It's all down to unscrupulous breeders taking advantage of market forces and silly customers buying unhealthy kittens and cats during the Covid lockdowns then deciding to give them up when they return to work, and they can't find the time to look after them. And/or the cost-of-living crisis means they have to give them up because they can't afford to look after them. One of the first things to go is the impulsively purchased cat not the smartphone contract costing £50 per month.

The point of this discussion is that people should not be driven by market forces when adopting cats. They should not make impulsive decisions about the adoption of a cat or dog. This is a considered decision to adopt a companion animal for the life of a companion animal. There are no other considerations. This should not be an impulsive, self-indulgent decision. 

It is a long-term decision and financial provision should be made. People need to research the cost and ensure that they have the money and will do going forward. If not don't adopt.

Rescues pick up the pieces

As usual, it is the rescue centres dotted around the country which pick up the pieces. They are the ones cleaning up the mess caused by the problems created by ill informed, ill-educated frankly silly people who just think they can adopt an animal like they can buy a new television.

It is no wonder that we have animal welfare issues in this country and other countries. The attitude towards sentient creatures is simply not good enough.

My thanks to the Southern Daily Echo.

Monday, 14 June 2021

Dracula cat became a celebrity because of her grossly misaligned jaw

Am I the only one who doesn't get this? Why do people make what appears to be a poorly bred, black Persian cat with a misaligned jaw a celebrity? I have never seen an undershot jaw so pronounced as this and in my view it is a case of poor cat breeding. 

Poorly bred Persian cat with grossly misaligned jaw is a social media celebrity
 Poorly bred Persian cat with grossly misaligned jaw is a social media celebrity. Photo: Instagram.

Two people found this cat on the New York streets we are told and they rescued her. I'm guessing, which I fully admit, but it seems to me that somebody has bred, perhaps informally, a Persian cat and it has gone horribly wrong so they abandoned the cat on the streets. 

I don't think a cat breeder produced this cat. Perhaps somebody adopted a Persian from a cat breeder that was unsterilized and they bred from her. I don't know the history so I'm guessing wildly but this is a flat-faced, brachycephalic cat, which is exactly what Persians are. 

But what sets this cat apart from any other is this horribly misaligned jaw and I just don't get why that warrants this cat becoming a celebrity. Humans are celebrating a deformity which is very sad for the cat although I'm sure she doesn't feel any pain or discomfort but it may affect her eating. We shouldn't celebrate human mistakes. We don't put humans who suffer from some sort of skeletal deformity on a pedestal and chatter about them with enthusiasm!

Princess Monster Truck
Princess Monster Truck! A feel sad for her. She should live a quiet, enjoyable life out of the limelight. Photo: Instagram

I have seen many Exotic Shorthair cats with this jaw deformity. These are shorthaired Persians. They are very closely related to the Persian. The most famous was Lil Bub. What is the obsession with misaligned jaws in cats? Is it the Dracula look? I think it is.

They have given her the name Princess Monster Truck, which I can't understand either. They've even claimed intellectual property rights over the name. I wouldn't bother to try and protect the copyright of that name because it bloody awful.

Friday, 5 March 2021

Do male cats mate with their siblings?

Yes, male cats do sometimes mate with their siblings. They are not choosy it seems. Neither are the females as they will mate with a series of males such that their litter might have different fathers. But it depends on the opportunity and the personality of the cat. 

Cat mating on a car's hood (bonnet in the UK)
Forgive the rudeness of the photo. Cat mating on  a car's hood (bonnet in the UK).
Photo: in the public domain.

Male domestic cats are often neutered as are female cats. And male cats arrive to mate with a female in heat and then disappear as they are solitary animals. Except when they are forced to live cheek by jowl for example in a rescue setting where many cats live in the same home of perhaps a cat rescuer who has turned into a hoarder.

I remember seeing a photograph of about fifty white cats in one home. Clearly the parents had procreated and the male had mated with some of the offspring on a regular basis to create this huge colony of lookalike cats stuffed into the tiny kitchen looking for their dinner.

And there is that well-known picture of a Japanese island famous for its cat colony. There are hundreds of ginger tabbies or that is the impression. They family has inbred for donkey's years to create this massive family of orgiastic felines going at it from one year to the next.

Japanese island colony of look alike ginger tabby cats
Japanese island colony of look alike ginger tabby cats. Photo: public domain.

The thing is you don't read about it in the books on cats. It seems that the top writers on cats don't like to write about it.

Notwithstanding the apparent reluctance to write about cat orgies, Dr Desmond Morris in his book Catwatching states that a single breeding pair of domestic cats can procreate their way to a staggering 65,000 cats in five years, at least in theory because many die. The calculation is based on the presumption that males and females are born in equal numbers and that they all start breeding when they are a year old.

Kittens can grow into unneutered adults who are content to mate with their mothers. The males desire to mate due to their testosterone is not concerned with the finer points of life. Their mother is another female to mate with. A friend of mine tried to get his male white Persian to mate with his mother. The male was entirely disinterested. Is that a personality trait issue?

Sunday, 24 January 2021

Pictures of Blue British Shorthair cats with extreme features

The three pictures of blue British Shorthair cats on this page show cats that have been bred to an extreme appearance. They probably come from Russia where they are very good at this. But I'm going to refer to The International Cat Association (TICA) breed standard for the British Shorthair to point out how breeders end up magnifying a particular feature of a cat because the breed standard specifies it. How far they go down that road is up to the breeder because the cat associations don't prevent them breeding to extreme although they should because sometimes it creates inherently unhealthy cats which goes against the cat associations' policies.

Extreme British Shorthair
Extreme bred British Shorthair to emphasis the cheeks and to make the cat look very cobby and rounded per the breed standard. Picture in public domain.

So, the head shape of the British Shorthair under the TICA beach standard demands that a show cat should have "full round chubby cheeks. Broad, wide cheekbones with smooth transition to muzzle". It is self-explanatory. The outstanding feature of the cats that you see on this page is that they have enormous, chubby cheeks. It's as if they are giant hamsters. They been bred like this. It's called selective breeding. 

The breeders start off with foundation cats which have slightly chubby cheeks and they breed offspring back to their parents to gradually magnify this aspect of their anatomy (inbreeding). They select those offspring whose cheeks are particularly chubby! They select the cat hence the phrase "selective breeding". It is not letting nature take its course. It is an intervention by a person which is why you end up with an abnormal looking cat. A cat that nature would not create if left to its own devices.

Extreme British Shorthair
Another British SH bred to extreme. Picture in the public domain.

I'm not being particularly critical. I don't really care. I just want to write something about these cats and it has to be about their cheeks! Because they stare you in the face as if something is wrong. But the breeders like it. No doubt these cats have done well. They probably sell very well. However, the classic British Shorthair does not look like these cats. They look fairly normal with slightlyflat faces and slightly shortened muzzles. These cats are extreme in other areas of their appearance as well, such as being extremely cobby (stocky and rounded) for the same reason.

Extreme British Shorthair
British Shorthair. Picture in public domain.

P.S. There is a current craze for 'chonky' cats - big, robust male cats. These cats follow that trend.

Extreme British Shorthair
Extreme British SH. Photo in public domain.


Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Signs Of Cat Inbreeding

Signs of cat inbreeding include the appearance of anomalies, inbreeding depression and a decline in hybrid vigor. I have a page on genetic diseases in purebred cats that shows how inbreeding can affect health. It depresses the immune system and throws up inherited illnesses that are serious.


The cat breeds on the left are the most inbred. The most inbred is the Singapura. The Siberian is the least inbred and on a level of random bred cats. On the far right are 3 subspecies of wildcat. Chart: in the public domain. Click on the image to see it more clearly.

MOST INBRED CAT BREEDS

So called "vigor" really means general health and well-being. Inbreeding results in the homozygosity of more genes with harmful effects. Deleterious genes that are carried by cats and which are "dormant" or unseen in physical appearance and health "make their presence felt due to inbreeding".

A classic example is Bengal nose. Breeders, though, would not agree. Breeders tend to downplay inbreeding problems for obvious reasons. And we have the depressed immune systems in modern Siamese cats that results in a depressed lifespan because of general illness that would not be present in random bred cats.

Robinson's Genetics quote the following as examples of possible consequences of inbreeding. More than one may be present or one in the extreme:
  • decline in birth weight - small, thin and lethargic kittens.
  • small litter sizes, more stillborn kittens, abnormal kittens.
  • poor growth in later life and "below standard" individual cats.
  • sterility problems. Poor sperm quality (see wild cat inbreeding), reluctance to copulate.
  • predisposition to illness. One disease kills all the litter.
  • physical deformities or physical appearance that lacks symmetry.
To this list I will add subnormal intelligence. Inbreeding depression can lead, in my view, to individual cats that lack the usual level of intelligence or cognitive function of the typical domestic cat. These cats are noticeable unresponsive and dull in character.

It is my contention that the most established cat breeds tend to have the most established genetic illnesses and the higher number of these sorts of illnesses. Examples: Siamese and Persian.

Purebred cat breeders like to fix a good looking cat persuant to the breed standard by inbreeding. This can also fix a poor immune system.

I have written this on the basis of what I have read over a considerable period of time and in reference to Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders & Veterinarians Fourth Edition ISBN 0-7506-4069-3.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Golden Tabby Tiger

I have a problem with the golden tabby tiger. There is nothing to suggest that it has ever existed in the wild. Yet it exists as a tourist attraction in captivity. And people who are pro-captive tigers and pro tigers as pets say that the golden tabby tiger and other tigers with a variety of coat types are good for conservation because they stimulate our interest in the tiger and in supporting conservation. I don't believe it.

Golden tabby tiger on display with "Doc" Antle - Photo by jmwests

The golden tabby tiger's coat is a product of the presence of a recessive gene that lies dormant and is therefore not expressed through a different coat (phenotype). It seems to me that you have to inbreed this tiger in captivity to get the gene to express itself in this rare coat type (seen above).

The white tiger is another example of an acutely inbred wildcat that is bred for the sake of financial profit. There is no element of conservation in the process.

And another thing. To use the word "tabby" indicates to me that is was first used by tiger breeders. The word "tabby" is basically a cat fancy word in the breeding of domestic purebred show cats. It is completely out of place when used to describe the appearance of a tiger.

The photographs of golden tabby tigers I have seen are of flabby not tabby cats! They are overweight and unfit in my opinion. One element of this unfitness might be inbreeding. The liger, which is a tiger/lion cross, also comes to mind as an overweight flabby big cat.

There are no references to the golden tabby tiger in the respected Wild Cats Of The World by Mel and Fiona Sunquist. They refer to the melanistic tiger (black tiger) and white tiger but not other morphs. The melanistic tiger has been seen three times, once in each of Myanmar, Bangladesh and eastern India. All white tigers stem from one tiger, Mohan a captured cub, his white mother having been killed. White tigers are inbred too and it causes well documented major health issues.

Sorry to sound very pessimistic but the golden tabby tiger (ridiculous cat breeder's style name) is all about people who like to keep captive wildcats and make a bit of money on the side. It's about personal self interest. There is nothing altruistic about it.

Saturday, 9 July 2011

Cat Inbreeding



Notes on inbreeding depression.

This is something that happens in nature as well as in the cat fancy. Cheetahs - and I am not talking about captive cheetahs - are inbred due to an event that happened a very long time ago. Siberian tigers are inbred causing reduced fertility. This is due to low populations in two island zones in the far east of Russia. White tigers at zoos are great to look at provided you don't know about the inbred malformations that some white tigers suffer from due to irresponsible breeding.

The inbreeding depression that interests me more currently is that which is inadvertently encountered by purebred cat breeders in their desire to achieve a desirable trait and to fix it. By this I mean to create a cat that looks fantastic and which fully complies with the breed standard.

Inbreeding depression reduces the ability of a species to survive. It results in low fertility and a weakened immune system. Inbreeding brings together harmful recessive genes that have been hidden for years. When two recessive genes come together (homozygous condition) they become active and express the trait that they can create.

Long standing cat breeds such as the Persian and Siamese have longer lists of genetic diseases than the other breeds. Bengal cats have been created from very few foundation cats. "It is estimated that over 37% of Persians have PKD1 (Polycystic Kidney Disease), a breed that accounts for nearly 80% of the cat fancy." How prevalent is HCM (a heart disease) in Bengals and Maine Coons (more on that soon...)?

I won't go on - I could. I am not "breeder bashing" just telling some people that it is advisable to look behind the fluffy and fantastic.

Breeders should be very, very careful about inbreeding and line breeding. The desire to achieve a desirable trait should be tempered with caution and knowledge. To be blinkered by the desire to win at cat shows can result in cats that are inherently unhealthy with poor immune systems and susceptible to disease.

Genetic diversity should be the first call of a responsible cat breeder. Appearance comes second. Unfortunately this is not always the case.

Cat show awards should be qualified by the cat's health and not be solely based on appearance. That does not happen currently.

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