Are American Shorthair cats rare?

The American Shorthair cat is not rare in an absolute sense. It's a regular purebred cat born out of a standard American moggy. This cat breed is a refined American moggy which is great and it is a very good purebred cat suited to indoor living and good with kids. But it's impossible to consider the cat as being rare. 

American Shorthair - classic tabby. Photo copyright Helmi Flick.

That said, the meaning of the word "rare" is elastic. In terms of the overall number of domestic cats in America you might argue that the American Shorthair is quite rare. However, in an absolute sense it is not rare. You will see them in households around America.

You will not see cats of this breed probably in Europe that much whereas you will see the more popular and perhaps better known American cat breed, the Maine Coon, more frequently in Europe. So perhaps you might argue that the American Shorthair cat is relatively rare in Europe but much less so in America, the home of their origin.

As it happens, I have a very comprehensive page on how rare the cat breeds are. I wrote it many years ago but I made a big effort to be accurate and used various criteria to decide on the rarity of the breeds. If you click on this link you'll be taken to the conclusions of that page where there is a list of what I consider to be the rare cat breeds. 

Apparently the number one cat association in Britain, the GCCF, believe that the Sokoke is the rarest cat breed. It is within my list as well but there are others. Some of the breeds I've listed have been discontinued and therefore there may be no cats of these breeds left in the world. That happens sometimes: cat breeds die out and therefore the cats of the breed disappear eventually.

American Shorthair Personality Traits

Easy-going, quiet and good with children; just three of the personality traits of the American Shorthair cat. Provided they are well socialized, they are very accepting of other animals. The American Shorthair ("American SH") tends to be independent minded². This cat breed stems from British moggies let's remember, so there will probably be a legacy from that heritage and some similarities to the British Shorthair. Indeed Linda Case lists both breeds under the same heading as well as the European Shorthair¹. In general, what is right for the British Shorthair is right for the American. See British Shorthair personality.

Gloria Stephens, incidentally, bundles the America SH with the American Wirehair. Both stem from random bred cats. The American SH is low maintenance. That is not a comment on personality but useful information nonetheless. They are undemanding and therefore suitable for full-time (apartment) living. However,  try not to comply with that suggestion as all cats like to smell the grass!

This is a quiet and sweet-natured cat and therefore suitable for older adults too⁴.

The easy-going description at the beginning of this article comes from Dr. Fogle's book³.

Here is a classy little American SH being photographed by Helmi. He has the classic blotched tabby coat and silver background.

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Sources:

(1) The Cat, Its Behavior, Nutrition & Health ISBN 978-0-8138-0331-9

(2) Medical, Genetic & Behavioral Aspects of Purebred Cats ISBN 0-9634124-0-X

(3) The Encyclopedia of the Cat ISBN 978-1-4053-2149-5

(4) Legacy of the Cat 2nd Ed. ISBN 0-8118-2910-3

American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats

American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats are discussed as a group here. The origin of these breeds and indeed the South American cat the Brazilian Shorthair are all in the same cat, the European Shorthair and I include the British Shorthair under that description.

As an outsider to the cat fancy you might think that the three cats above are similar because the names are similar. You might also think that they are the same cat breed but just bred in different parts of the world. That is not quite the case, however.

European Shorthair cat

I have already written about the American Shorthair cat and the British Shorthair cats. They are similar looking cats. They are nice sensible looking cats and when they are show cats they can be seriously glamorous too. The 2008 TICA best kitten is an American Shorthair called KELLOGGS LOVE ECHOES ON - glamor on four legs.. He is a classic silver tabby (see another American Shorthair tabby - this page also shows another silver tabby show cat, you'll be impressed by). They are meant to have calm personalities, which helps in the show ring, all that competitive competition you know, it gets quite nerve racking for us show cats.

This is an American SH:

Photo: Helmi Flick with her permission.

This is a British SH:

Photo: Helmi Flick with her permission.

Recognition

But what of the European Shorthair cat? How does this cat breed fit into the scene, with these two well know breeds occupying a lot of space in the cat fancy already? The first thing to do is a comparison of the associations to see which ones recognize which breed. This is what I found, but it may not, despite considerable care, be complete:

American Shorthair
Recognized by all the North American cat associations. TICA, which is international, also recognizes this breed

British Shorthair
Recognized by all North American cat associations and the GCCF in the UK. TICA, which is international, also recognizes this breed

European Shorthair
Recognized by the Europe located cat association FIFe

This tells us right away about the differences in American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats. The European Shorthair is a lot less established, in terms of formal recognition, than the other two shorthair cats. The history (below) tells a different story.

Creation

When were the three breeds, American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats, created? The American SH began in 1966, the British SH in the 1870s and the European SH 1982 (formally).

I have used the date of formal recognition of the European Shorthair as the date of creation in this instance. Although this is misleading. The European Shorthair is the latest of the these three shorthair cat breeds on the block in respect of recognition by the major associations (it seems to me). However, the European Shorthair as a cat breed began at a similar time to the British Shorthair. While the British Shorthair was being "created" from domestic shorthaired mixed breed cats in the England at the beginning of the 1900s the Europeans were doing the same thing on the continent and importing British Shorthairs from England to improve their blood lines.

Sweden were also developing a shorthaired cat from imported British Shorthairs. These were crossed with sturdy local cats. The Swedes did not cross the imported British Shorthairs with Persian cats as was the case in England. Through following different breeding programs in the UK, Sweden and Continental Europe, whilst retaining the same breed standard it was time eventually to regularise the situation which meant the creation of the European Shorthair cat as distinct breed from the British SH.

The concept of creating a purebred and pedigreed cat from a mixed breed domestic cat is commonly encountered particularly early on in the history of the cat fancy. For example it happened to the Norwegian Forest cat . The Egytpian Mau is still a feral cat in Egypt and a glamorous show cat in the West. As discussed it also happened to the British Shorthair cat in the late 1800s in England. In theory any type of cat can become a purebred cat provided the cat associations agree and the rules applied.

As to the American Shorthair cat this breed also has its foundations in the British SH as the first American SHs were created from the decendents of Brit SHs imported into north America in the 1600s with the European settlers. The development of the American SH in the 1900s would have followed a different but similar course to the Brit SHs.

Breeding/appearance

As mentioned, in England the British Shorthair cat was outcrossed with the cobby Persian so the cat is more cobby than the European SH. This is apparent in the photographs. The British SH was also referred to as a European Shorthair cat, causing confusion. In contrast, there was and is a desire to keep the European SH as pure as possible. Yet it has to be accepted that the breed's origins are in mixed-breed cats (meaning impure). Perhaps it is more accurate that the formal breeding programs of this cat (c.f. informal breeding of non-purebred cats) are such that the original appearance and character is being retained. Finland also produces high quality European SHs apparently. The European SH is not cobby (due to the Persian influence) but is muscular and strongly built nonetheless.

As I have written about the American and the British SHs (see links above) I won't repeat it here. I'll be building a page on the European in due course. But in brief the European SH has 58 colors and the classic tabby is the favorite (see cat coats tabby). As this is also a Scandinavian cat the coats are more suited to that climate and the European SH is thought to be the part of the history of the Norwegian Forest cat and other breeds (Siberian ? Chartreux for example).

A very quick outline look at the breed standards give clues as to the difference between the American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats:

American Shorthair
The CFA breed standard for this cat is I believe, in a general sense, somewhere between the British (cobby) and the European (balanced). The CFA say that this is a "working cat". No part of the anatomy should be exaggerated. Although the cat should be strongly built.

British Shorthair
The CFA says that this cat should be compact with medium to short legs and a rounded head (round and massive). That right away gives us the clue as to the general shape of this cat breed. The original British Shorthaired domestic cats from which this breed was developed are very similar to the modern Brit SHs except less cobby and less rounded. The breeding of the cat over the past century has created that more rounded appearance.

European Shorthair
I am going to simply refer to the opening paragraph of the FIFe standard in which they say that this breed "can be compared to any kind of domestic cat". In other words this is like the Moggie mixed bred cat that can by the way compete at championship shows and has its own class (see Household Pets - Mixed breed cats). It also means that the European Shorthair cat is truer to the original appearance of the original British SHs before they became purebred cats.

American Shorthair, British Shorthair, and European Shorthair cats - Source for European SH - Finnish European Shorthair Cat Club.

Note:

Picture of European Shorthair cat is published under Wikimedia® commons license - Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License. Author is Ba'Gamnan. See Wikipedia license generally.

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American Shorthair tabby

Above -- American shorthair tabby cat - a pure and wholly normal cat. The cat illustrated has a classic tabby coloring and pattern, the blotched tabby pattern with the very distinct tabby "M" on the forehead - photo strictly copyright Helmi Flick.

The American shorthair tabby is, for me, the best coat color and pattern for this most normal and balanced of American cats. But is she American? The origins of this cat breed is in England so it is fair to argue that this is an English cat, the English Shorthair. 

Yet, as the first of this breed came over to America in the early 1600s I think the English can concede that by now an American shorthair tabby is an American cat.

The tabby pattern is the most natural of all cat patterns and colors because it has evolved naturally as the best in terms of camouflage and in the early days before domestic cats became wild cats (about 9,000 years ago) it was all about survival in a natural environment. And the landscape is often brown and broken in color and texture.

I have made an extensive post about the tabby cat coat under the heading cat coats tabby. In summary, each hair is not a single color but has a horizontal banding of black and yellow. The black color is made up a substance (a pigment) called eumelanin and the yellow color is made up of a pigment called phaeomelanin. The gene that dictates how this coloring is deposited in the hair as it grows is the Agouti gene (symbolized by the letter A - a dominant gene). The tip of the hair is black.

In the American shorthair tabby, the Agouti gene works in conjunction with another gene (a tabby gene) which is recessive and which is symbolized by the lower case letters, mc. The presence of this gene results in eliminating the black to yellow banding on certain hairs and allowing only the production of black pigmentation, which is present throughout the length of the hair. This happens in a clump of hairs and in a blotched tabby, as shown above, the clumps form swirls and blotches throughout the torso. In a mackerel tabby (named after the fish's strips) the patterns are striped

Above -- Silver Classic American Shorthair tabby cat - photo strictly copyright Helmi Flick. The silver tabby lacks the yellow pigmentation causing the yellow banding referred to above. Without this pigmentation the black stands out more producing a high contrast pattern, something that breeder aim for generally in patterns. If some yellow pigment remains it is called "tarnishing " in the cat fancy. This color is produced by a dominant gene called the inhibitor gene, symbolized by the letter I. It retrains and subdues the development of the pigment during hair growth.

The CFA allow no outcrosses for the American Shorthair, which means that breeders whose cats are registered with the CFA must breed American Shorthair to American Shorthair.

Click on the link to see more fine photographs and read more about the American Shorthair cat. This a very normal domestic cat. See a classic silver tabby American Shorthair show cat at a show.


Source:

• Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders and Veterinarians

American shorthair tabby to American Curl