No whiskers makes the Sphynx cat illegal in Germany

Under Germany's torture breeding laws, the Sphynx cat is illegal because it has no whiskers. There are other reasons but if you visit a Sphynx cat forum, the aficionados on that website constantly refer to the fact that this breed normally has no whiskers.

They are born with whiskers but they are very brittle and they break off. That's part of the result of the genetic mutation which makes the cat hairless.

"I would consider the lack of a sensory organ to be harmful," animal expert Thomas Göbel said before court during a case about neutering a male Canadian Sphynx cat in Berlin owned by a breeder, Jacqueline L. The court made an order for the breeding cat to be castrated to prevent him breeding thus undermining the breeder's hobby business. 

The court case proves that the law is occasionally (at least) enforced. The report is dated 2015.

You might know that Germany has a unique policy on domestic cat breeding which prevents breeders from creating animals that suffer through what I would call misguided breeding practices. It's the cat fancy which drives breeders to creating unusual-looking cats such as these hairless cats and others such as the Persian with the extremely flat face which causes breathing problems. That breed is also illegal in Germany despite the fact that it is a very popular cat breed in America and has been for decades.

Germany is ahead of the game in terms of controlling cat breeding. Although, this law is difficult to enforce in Germany. On the forum I mention they say that there is at least one Sphynx cat breeder in Germany 😹🙀. I presume they are exporting their cats abroad.

It was interesting to me to see what these Sphynx cat owners say about their cats falling foul of the German Qualzucht law. They pinpointed the lack of whiskers but there are other reasons because this is a hairless cat.

A side effect of a lack of cat coat is that the sebaceous glands' oils are deposited on the skin and not into the hair strands. This causes the skin to become grimy which means the Sphynx caregiver has to wipe down their cat regularly. It can also cause the cat to smell. 

20 facts about cat whiskers

Cats need whiskers for balance, to help guide them in darkness, to feel a prey animal that's been captured. You see a cat force their whiskers forward when there is something of interest right in front of them. Whiskers are incredibly sensitive because of a large bundle of nerves at their base. They are really an important part of a domestic cat's anatomy and therefore their life.

To remove them is cruel and the cat will suffer which is why this breed is banned in Germany. And to that obvious fact you can add another one which is recently been revealed namely the incredibly short lifespan of this cat breed which is 6.68 years according to a comprehensive study.

And the reason why the lifespan is so short is because this breed like other cat breeds suffers from HCM which stands for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which describes a thickening of the left ventricle of the heart causing the heart to become very inefficient leading to a shortened lifespan. And a high percentage of Sphynx cats suffer from this disease. It isn't good enough. The Germans know this. And that's why it's illegal in Germany.

How does a cat use her whiskers?

This is a cross-post because it's an important post. It's important to tackle what cat advocates regard as inappropriate cat breeding. I'm not against cat breeding per se but when the animals produced are inherently unhealthy because of genetic mutations it's unfair on the cat. But the cat fancy allows it because these cats look interesting. They attract attention.

This is an attractive and popular looking cat but there are too many deficiencies all because of what animal advocates would regard as inappropriate breeding.

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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.

Why do cats have whiskers? It is cruel to trim them.

A domestic cat's whiskers (and the same, of course, applies to feral and stray cats) are remarkable items of feline anatomy. Most people think of them as serving a single purpose: to measure the width of gaps to tell the cat if she can get through it but they do a lot more than that.

They are very sensitive as at their base there is a mass of nerve endings. This makes cats' whiskers so sensitive they can feel air currents wafting around solid objects which the cat can't see clearly in the dark depths of night even with their super-sensitive eyes.

Vital cat's whiskers. Image: MikeB

Night hunting

Whiskers are particularly important when a cat hunts at night. Dr. Desmond Morris in his seminal book Cat Watching tells us that we know whiskers are vital to a cat when hunting at night because if they are damaged, they cannot make a perfectly clean kill in the dark but when they are in perfect condition, they can kill cleaning in the depths of night. 

Feelers

They achieve this because these supersensitive appendages a.k.a. vibrissae can feel the neck of the mouse or bird that the cat has caught and armed with the information that whiskers pass back to their brain they are able to visualise the neck and the position of the vertebrae within the neck and deliver their killing nape of the neck bite to split the vertebrae and kill the prey animal.

In this example, the whiskers are acting like feelers and they become the eyes of the domestic cat in the dark. They have a split-second ability to check the body outline of the victim. Dr. Morris believes that the tips of the whiskers "must read off the details of the shape of the prey, like a blind man reading Braille, and in an instant tell the cat how to react".

And in some photographs of cats that have caught prey the whiskers are almost wrapped around the animal's body passing back vital information to the cat's brain about the slightest movement if the prey is still alive.

Nocturnal hunter

And we know that the domestic cat is a primarily nocturnal hunter although they are diurnal meaning they hunt at night and day but they favour dawn and dusk i.e. they are crepuscular. This is because that is the time when prey animals are more active. Because of this whiskers are particularly vital in their success rate in killing prey.

Anatomy

Anatomically speaking, the whiskers are greatly enlarged and stiffened hairs as you no doubt know. They are twice the thickness of ordinary hairs. And as you also might know they are embedded in the tissue of the cat's upper lip to a depth of three times that of other hairs. That last bit you probably didn't realise and deep under the skin they are supplied with a mass of nerve endings as I've mentioned above.

Normally, a cat has 24 whiskers, 12 on each side of the nose. They are arranged in horizontal rows.  The length of whiskers varies enormously between cats. Here for example are the amazing whiskers on a female cat:

Amazing whiskers on a cute female cat. Image in public domain.

Moveable

They can move forwards when the cat wants to check things out with their whiskers. If you put a cat tease in front of a cat's face you might be lucky enough to see their whiskers dart forwards as if to touch the feathers of the tease.

And they can move backwards when the cat needs to protect them as part of a defensive action. And they can move backwards when for example the cat has their head in a food or a water bowl. This brings up another issue which is "whiskers stress". 

Whisker stress

Many people believe that some cat bowls are the wrong shape i.e. they are too deep and too narrow. Cat food bowl should be quite wide and flattish. This allows the whiskers to avoid the sides of the bowl which avoids whiskers stress which is a form of irritation to the cat and it might be so bad as to encourage the cat to not feed. I don't think that happens an awful lot but it may happen in certain individual cats.

Also, the top two rows of whiskers can be moved independently of the bottom two. The strongest whiskers are in rows two and three according to Dr. Morris.

Non-facial whiskers

You will also see whiskers in other parts of the body. For example, there are a few on the cheeks, over the eyes and on the chin.  Surprisingly, you might also see some at the back of the front legs. They are all sensitive detectors.

The cat's whiskers

When we say that something is "the cat's whiskers" we mean that it is very good. It is an apt expression because whiskers are indeed very good. They are a very special piece of feline anatomy.

Trimming

For this reason, they should never be trimmed or cut in anyway shape or form. Some people ask whether they can trim a cat's whiskers. The answer quite positively is no as you can understand from the long description above. 

Image: MikeB

My now deceased sister cut off the whiskers of our family cat when she was a girl. To this day I have no idea why she did it. It was a cruel act.

Hairless cats

Some purebred cats have crinkly whiskers or no whiskers due to a genetic mutation. I am referring to the hairless cats; the Sphynx and Don Sphynx. 

Hairless cat showing poor quality whiskers. Image: Pixels by Pixabay.

This is an example of how breeding a purebred cat based on a genetic mutation which creates a defect (no hair and poor whiskers) can be cruel to the cat. A hairless cat cannot rely on their whiskers as described above.

Should I trim my cat's: whiskers, fur, claws, bum hair and/or paw pads?

Long whiskers - don't trim them as the are superb and they serve an important purpose. Photo in public domain.

In the order they appear in the title, the answers are as follows:

• NO! This is deliberately in capitals for emphasis 😊. Never dream about trimming whiskers to make them tidier. They are highly functional. They act as 'fingers' and feelers. The base of a whisker is connected to nerves resulting in the whisker being very sensitive to even air currents and the things that it comes into contact with.
• RELATED: How does a cat use her whiskers?
• You can trim fur in employing a lion cut. This can be useful for longhaired cats in home climates as the fur of Persians can be inordinately and unnaturally long. It should be done by a vet as the cat will probably need sedating or they even need a general aesthetic. These are dangerous. Discuss with your vet.
• RELATED: Cat Anaesthetics Decision Making.
• Claws need trimming sometimes. Full-time indoor cats don't normally have the means to wear down the claws on their forepaws. Outside cats wear them down precluding the need to trim them. Elderly cats need a regular inspection to check for ingrowing nails due to their relative inactivity.
• RELATED: Should Cat Claws Be Trimmed?
• Bum hair does not need trimming. No point, unless the cat is ill with diarrhoea and can't keep themselves clean.
• RELATED: Cat Health Tip: Treatment of Routine Diarrhea or Vomiting.
• The reference to 'paw pads' means the tufts of hair between the toes which you typically see on the paws of Maine Coons. No, you should not trim it. No need and it's a nice feature of the domestic cat. The hair serves a purpose anyway: to protect the paw pads in hot weather and to help keep the paws warmer in cold weather.
• RELATED: Maine Coon toe tufts - to trim or not to trim??

What are cats' whiskers made of?

Cats' whiskers are made of keratin. This is the same substance that makes our finger nails and the claws of our cats. And a cat's fur is made of keratin. A rhino's horn is made of keratin too, by the way, which is why it is so strange that some people think it has medicinal properties. It does not. The reason for the gradual extinction of the rhino is because people think eating rhino horn is beneficial. They might just as well eat their finger nails. It would be a lot cheaper and it would protect the precious rhino.

Cat whiskers are made of keratin. Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Keratin is also the material that makes an animal's scales, feathers, hooves and calluses.

So what is keratin? It is a fibrous structural protein. At the cellular level the production of keratin is called 'cornification' which is the process of 'forming an epidermal barrier in stratified squamous epithelial tissue'. Yes, it is very technical.

Keratin has to be strong and it is. Science Direct tells me that "keratins are cysteine-rich proteins endowed by nature with high mechanical strength owing to the large number of disulphide bonds". More technical stuff.

Never trim a cat's whiskers. They need them for a range of tasks. They are connected to a mass of nerves in the muzzle which allows whiskers to 'feel' air currents which in turn allows cats to detect objects that they can't see. They are also used to detect the exact location of the vertebrae in the neck of prey so the cat can severe it with a precise bite.

You might see whiskers being trusted forwards like tentacles when a cat has something interesting in front of him. They are reaching out to detect what that interesting object is.

Safer Bicycle Inspired by Cat's Whiskers

Students in Long Beach, USA wanted to make cycling safer in the city.  They wanted it to be the safest place for a cyclist.  One element of safety for a cyclist is an adequate amount of space around the cycle.  They wanted to design a bike or an accessory for a bike which addresses the problem of adequate space for a cyclist and they found the answer in nature, in what they refer to as bio-attributes. In observing animals they found the answer in whiskers.

These need not be the whiskers that belong to a domestic cat but the sake of this post I will refer to a cat's whiskers and in any case a cat's whiskers are the best!  They are a remarkable item of anatomy.  They are incredibly sensitive because of a heavy conglomeration of nerves at the base of each whisker which allows the cat to detect small changes in air currents surrounding the whiskers which in turn allows the cat to detect what objects are there in dark conditions because the air currents move around objects and are disturbed by objects.  The whiskers allow a cat to read the terrain without actually seeing it.

A cat's whiskers are like the fingers of a hand in that they can feel the cat's prey and help guide the cat when killing prey in dusky conditions at dawn and dusk.  It is said that the cat's whiskers allows the cat to feel the position on the nape of a small mammal's neck where the cat is to insert his canine teeth to sever the spinal cord.

Inspired by the sensitivity and functionality of whiskers the student engineers came up with whiskers for bikes.The product is called vibriSee and essentially it allows the cyclist to signal to other road users how much space the cyclist requires.  They look like somewhat like cat's whiskers as you can see in the photographs on this page.

See the video from which these screenshots were taken.

Article by Michael Broad