Picture of a longhaired Selkirk Rex bicolour

This is a nice picture of the Selkirk Rex longhair. The coat is a bicolour, specifically a ginger-and-white bicolour. The news media refer to this cat as a cat in sheep's clothing. They have the approximate appearance of the better-known British Shorthair but with a curly coat. They are quite rare which surprises me because they are also popular. 

You will find shorthaired and longhaired variants. The curls are more pronounced in the longhaired version. The body is semi-cobby meaning slightly stocky. The head is pleasantly round. When you breed them you are allowed to outcross to British Shorthair cats because that method of selective breeding will not change the body shape of the Selkirk Rex.

Picture of a longhaired Selkirk Rex bicolour. Photo: Reddit.

The breed more or less started in Wyoming shelter in the late 1980s when a Montana Persian breeder was given a cat with curly hair from which she founded the breed. At that time, of course, the breed had not been named. I'm told that as the kittens get older the ends of the curly whiskers become brittle and break off leaving very short curly whiskers. And about four months of age the kittens might lose most of their hair. It grows back curly and it remains that way for the remainder of their lives. The coat is soft and plush with quite coarse guard hairs.

They are a sweet and loyal cat, a healthy breed making gentle, pleasant companions. You'll see them in all categories, all divisions and in all colours. You can read more about this cat by clicking on the link below if you wish.

Selkirk Rex Cat

Do Selkirk Rex cats shed a lot?

Do Selkirk Rex cats shed a lot? No, is the answer. There is nothing in the history of this breed which indicates that Selkirk Rex cats shed more or less than other cats. The cat has coarse guard (top coat) hairs and these together with the awn and down hairs are curled.

Curly-coated cat. The Selkirk Rex. Photo: Nathalie Jacques, Saint-Léonard d'Aston, Québec, Canada.

Selkirk Rex kittens are born with curly coats. The coat disappears at about 6-months-of-age. It is replaced by sparse wiry hair. At around ten months old the adult coat emerges which is curly, plush and thick.

There is nothing in the literature which supports the belief that the Selkirk Rex sheds a lot. They neither shed more nor less than cats with normal coats to the best of my knowledge.

Hair shedding in cats is due to the change in the amount of light not the amount of heat. That is why shedding is seasonal with more hair shed in the summer months due to more light.

The gene causing the curly coat is dominant in contrast to the other Rex cats. 'Rex' cats are curly haired cats. The Devon and Cornish Rex cats are also well-known. The Selkirk has gained some popularity recently (2018-2021) because of media coverage of cats with sheep's coats.

Smoky Selkirk Rex Kitten

This is a smoky Selkirk Rex kitten. I think the coat is called black smoke. It is definitely smoke! It's got to be by the very distinctive appearance. A gorgeous looking kitten from the Chatterie du Berger cat breeders in Canada. The location is at the bottom of the page. The breeder is Nathalie Jacques.

Smokey Selkirk Rex Kitten.

If the Selkirk Rex breed interests you please click on this link to see some pages on it. You can explore to your hearts content. Every face is covered.

Nathalie Jacques , Saint-Léonard d'Aston , Québec, Canada   

1(819)399-3747

Spot the cat - Selkirk Rex sleeps belly up on shaggy rug

Cool photo of a Selkirk Rex. Shaggy on shaggy = camouflage. Clearly a nice place to live as this cat is so relaxed. It is a good sign. Cats like to sleep like because it is comfortable - obvious. But it does mean that they are confident in their surroundings as they are highly vulnerable. That is obvious too.

Here is the photo embedded from the Instagram page of gina_and_gepetto. The reason why the above photo is here is because embedded images from Instgram and Twitter such as the one below tend to disappear leaving a link to their website.

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A post shared by 𝓖𝓲𝓷𝓪 & 𝓖𝓮𝓹𝓮𝓽𝓽𝓸 (@gina_and_gepetto)

Pictures of Pompous Albert, a grumpy Selkirk Rex

I have just discovered Pompous Albert and feel I have to put a few words down because he is quite an extraordinary looking cat. He is named after Albert Einstein. I wonder whether he is as clever as Mr Einstein. In terms of the amount of grumpiness on his face it is not that dissimilar to the famous Grumpy Cat. But there was only one Grumpy Cat and the world is not ready for another. However, Pompous Albert has a very healthy following of 306,000 followers on Instagram. He is therefore a major success as a celebrity cat.

Pompous Albert as a youngster I believe. Photo his Instagram page.

Selkirk Rex cats are sometimes referred to as 'the cat in sheep's clothing' or the 'Poodle Cat' but there is a specific cat breed called the Poodle Cat so the name is confusing. You can see why these alternative names stuck. I'll write a few words about the Selkirk Rex which incidentally is not that popular a cat breed which is surprising because they do look very unusual and people like unusual-looking cats.

Pompous Albert. Photo: Instagram page.

This cat breed is one of three breeds with this sort of crinkly coat. They are called Rex cats. The mutated gene which causes the curly hair in the Selkirk Rex differs from the gene that causes curly hair in the Cornish and Devon Rex cats. It is a dominant gene. The breed started in 1987 in Montana, America. The founding breeder is Jeri Newman.

A rescue cat gave birth to a litter of kittens and one had the mutated gene and therefore the curly hair. She was housed by Persian cat breeder who named the kitten Miss DePesto. This single cat is the founding cat of this breed. The cat's name come from the mountain range in Wyoming, USA. In Scotland the town of Selkirk is 60 miles south of Edinburgh.

Selkirk Rex - not Pompous Albert. Photo: Helmi Flick.

Because the gene is dominant, 50% of the offspring of a mating between a cat of this breed and one of a non-curly cat breed or random bred cat will be Selkirk Rex cats. Don't think that because the fur is very different that they don't shed fur. They shed fur like any other cat and neither are they hypoallergenic.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no outstanding health issues inherited into cats of this breed. If my assessment is correct then that is a big endorsement because many of the cat breeds are linked to certain unfortunate inherited illnesses which purchasers should be aware of.

Pictures of 'Poodle Cat' kittens

These are really nice pictures of cats; specifically pictures of "Poodle Cat" kittens. There are a few things to say about them. Firstly, they are an excellent example of the Selkirk Rex, which is how they should be referred to. It's an important point because journalists and people outside the cat fancy or cat world tend to refer to Selkirk Rex cats as 'Poodle Cats', which creates a bit of confusion because there just so happens to be a super-rare cat breed which you probably can't buy because there may be none left named the, guess what, Poodle Cat. 

It is also a curly-haired domestic cat looking quite similar to the Selkirk Rex but it is not. It is a distinct cat breed with a genuine name.

Selkirk Rex kitten, AKA Poodle Cat. Picture in the public domain.

Some people refer to the Selkirk Rex as a "cat in sheep's clothing". That's another way to describe this breed but 'Poodle Cat' caught the imagination and it sort of stuck. Despite a certain amount of celebrity being acquired by that interesting name, the Selkirk Rex is relatively unpopular in comparison to the other mainstream cat breeds. 

I'm not sure why because I think it's a beautiful cat. You probably know that the curly hair is caused by a genetic mutation. Quite a lot of breeds have been started that way because genetic mutations happen spontaneously and they often cause the cats to look interestingly different. Their anatomy is altered in a way which interests people.

Selkirk Rex kittens AKA Poodle Cat kittens. Picture in the public domain.

A classic example of course is the Sphynx cat which is hairless. Another is the Manx cat which is tailless. You can see that genetic mutations can sometimes remove an item of a cat's anatomy. In doing this they have lost a part of themselves which nature gave to them. Both the tail and the coat of a cat are important. Arguably, their behaviour is altered by losing these items of their anatomy. 

You might say that it is unfair on them that cat breeders created a breed out of what we have to regard as a defect. This is my beef with some of the cat breeds. They are built on a deficiency or a defect. This is not something that we would do with our fellow humans. It's quite the opposite. We try and avoid humans being born with anatomical defects due to genetic mutation for obvious reasons. Why then do we promote and become excited about the same thing when it concerns a cat? That is the beginning of a very deep and I would argue slightly unpleasant philosophical argument which I won't get into.

"Pompous Albert" Is a Purebred Haughty Version of Grumpy Cat

I think that Pompous Albert is the first purebred celebrity cat as far as I'm aware. Not only that, he is quite a rare purebred cat because he is a Selkirk Rex. Not many people look after a Selkirk Rex. They look a bit like sheep! They have this thick wavy coat and their appearance underneath the coat is somewhat like a British or American shorthair.



Talking about appearance, Pompous Albert, certainly has his own distinctive look which as his name indicates is pompous with a certain amount of grumpiness combined with a haughtiness resulting in a unique un-catlike appearance.

When some visitors see him they ask whether he is actually a domestic cat such is his arresting appearance. He lives with Susan and Michael Singleton of Salt Lake City. He is seven years old. His appearance has remained unchanged since the day he was born.

He spends his days in the offices of the Singletons' fine art publishing business with two cat companions. Cats are great in the workplace. He is named after Albert Einstein apparently so we will have to assume that Albert Einstein was quite pompous.

He has the grumpy cat glare, while the haughtiness comes from the upward turning eyes, I would say. The Is
eyes are marked out very nicely with heavy black eyeliner. It's more a glare actually, a glare which says he does not suffer fools gladly.

He is a typical cat with one or two small exceptions. For example he likes to be vacuumed! Most cats run away from vacuum cleaners but apparently he likes to be vacuum cleaned. Rarely cats like this because it feels good but normally the noise terrifies cats. He attacks paper shredders and photocopiers and printers. He likes kids (that's an excellent quality).

He has 30,000 followers on Instagram which is fantastic but it's a long way short of the fame of the all conquering Grumpy Cat. Grumpy Cat has earned an estimated hundred million dollars for her owner, Tabatha. We don't know the exact amount but that's a guesstimate. No cat is going to beat that ever.