Servals for sale

Before looking for Servals for sale I'd think about the underlying issues, which are discussed on this page: Serval cats (this deals with the cat in the wild and some domestic cat issues including legal issues).

You can read more and see more photographs on the Serval cat on this page: Serval (this page deals with the cat as a domestic cat with some great Helmi Flick photographs, which I guarantee that you will love.

Servals for sale are rare and the first thing to think about are the legalities of owning/keeping what is a medium sized wild cat from Africa.

Here is a Serval breeder who has contributed to this website with this page: http://www.pictures-of-cats.org/beautiful-woodland-african-serval-kittens-for-adoption.html - this page will interest prospective adopters as well.

Servals for sale to Home page

Photo by loochie - published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License

Spaying procedure

Spaying procedure is discussed in outline with photographs on this page: Neutering cats.

The page also discusses other topics to do with neutering cats. Spaying procedure is the desexing of female cats.

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Keep cats away

Photo by Paul Watson

As a person who loves animals and cats I don't need to keep cats away. But I understand the sentiments of people who do. And a reasonable number of people do want to know the best way to keep cats away. It seems to me that the major reasons are (a) they don't like cats or plain hate cats and (b) they have a garden and feel that cats cause damage and might go to the toilet in their garden, which they don't like and (c) some people may have some pets that they are fearful might be harmed by a domestic cat or (d) they feel that domestic cats spread disease.

For me and any decent person the underlying criteria at all times is to act in a humane way vis-a-vis the cat and a neighborly way in respect of other people living nearby. We can usually achieve much more this way.

At the outset there is the issue as to whether the cat that encroaches on our territory is a neighbors cat, a stray cat or a feral cat. A stray cat is a domestic cat that has decided to leave the home of the person keeping the cat. A feral cat is one born wild but her/his parents might have been a domestic cat living with people.

It is pretty difficult to tell the difference and one's actions depend on distinguishing between the three types of cat unless we simply change our mentality. If we are dealing with (a) above one bit of lateral thinking would provide a solution that says that the best way to keep cats out is to learn to like cats. These people wouldn't then need to keep them out. That is probably too simplistic. But if a person has learned to dislike cats (and it is a learning process) then they can equally unlearn in time what has been learnt. It is the effort that is off putting and why bother anyway.

A useful advance on learning to like cats is then to keep a cat. This will probably provide the best deterent for another cat to enter your space. This is because cats are territorial and your new cat will/might/should see off the stranger. That said this method is not completely fool proof as cats sometimes share space on a time share basis. This is likely to happen when territory is scarce.

If we are dealing with a neighbor's cat, another bit of lateral thinking would be that the best route is to get the person keeping the cats to build an enclosure. In other words the cat keeper takes charge and does the work to keep cats away from other people. This must be the best solution but it will rarely be carried out. Although I think enclosures really are the best solution for all concerned including the cat keeper. Cat enclosures bring that precious commodity peace of mind. It is difficult for a cat lover (in Europe in any event) to keep her cat imprisoned permanently indoors. But a simple and fairly inexpensive cat enclosure gives our cat a safe space outside to get the juices going. 

If I lived in a house with a young cat I'd definitely build a good sized cat enclosure as it completely solves so many problems. Another advantage is that there is less burden on the cat keeper to entertain her cat. And the neighbors will love you for it. Or, the neighbors should provide a very attractive area in their garden where their cat(s) can go. Cats will migrate to the first and best available spot. Better still is this thought. If a neighbor's cat is going to the toilet on your garden it probably means that the neighbor is not keeping a good quality and frequently cleaned litter tray for her/his cat(s). Ask about that and help the neighbor to sort that out. Cats will automatically use a litter tray and it will keep cats away from other people's gardens.

However, there are all kinds of reasons why neighbors do not respond well to requests to restrain their cats or take action to modify behavior. The first is that when you ask other people to do something like stopping their cats trespassing on your property is that they will often these days become aggressive. That could result in a neighbor dispute; the last thing one wants as there is no cure for a neighbor dispute other than moving. In referring to the cat enclosure idea above, maybe one way of approaching your neighbor with the cats about how to keep cats away from your property is to offer to contribute to a cat enclosure and sell the idea as a good one for the neighbor. This might be a bit fanciful however as the world is not sane enough really.

That leads to another solution - moving to a place where there is less likelihood of cats being around. Where might that be? In the country I guess. This would preclude the need to keep cats away.

What about devices that emit sounds that frighten off cats? Forget them, they don't work in my opinion and my experience. I tried using one to stop my cat going towards the road - no luck. I think we can dismiss these devices. Note: some of the better ones may provide some deterent.

If we know the cat is a feral cat we should be allowed to take the cat (if we can catch her/him) to a rescue center. The same would apply to a stray cat. See catching a stray cat. This action may however lead to the death of the cat (see feral cats). That might not concern the person who wants to keep cats out but it would concern me.

People say that shooting water at a cat can keep cats away. This might be the case but will it do the trick permanently? See bulleted list below for a sophisticated modification to this method.

After that ramble here are some ad hoc ideas gleaned from the internet to keep cats away:

• a plant called Coleus Canina (Scardy Cat) can deter cats - don't know if it works
• cats only go to the toilet on earth. Plant ground covering shrubs and splikey plants and lawn; this leaves no free earth for a toilet to keep cats away
• cat repellent powder (doesn't work??)
• pepper in the soil (will it wash away? is it effective?)
• a cat will go back to a place she has used as a toilet so clearing away the area will help
• a motion sensor attached to a garden hose
• plant geraniums, marigolds and petunias cats dislike these
• scatter citrus peel and/or onion skins around the garden (not sure about this one)
• use "Silent Roar" cat repellent - Google the term and go from there

Keep cats away to Home page
Keep cats away - Header photo: published under a creative commons license - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Long hair cats

These are the most popular long hair cats judged by a long running poll on this website, together with links to pages that have lots of great Helmi Flick photographs and lots of detail. The cats listed her have hair that is longer than short haired cats but the length will vary and some could better be described as medium-long haired.

Maine Coon
The 2nd most popular cat after the Siamese. This is an all American cat of distinction. Long and flexible, fine character and at the show cat level these are very impressive cats indeed. There is a wide range of coat colors and patterns. There are regrettably one or two health concerns with this breed, which is sad.

Persian
This cat breed is the 5th most popular on my site's poll. They used to say that the Persian was the most popular cat breed in the USA. I think that that is no longer true but I could be wrong. If I am correct it could be because of the transition to the flat face causing health problems. This cat has very long hair. The long hair gene is indicated by the letter l. It allows the hair to grow for a longer time so it becomes longer. Breeders like long hair to be soft and silky. The achieve this by selective breeding to bring into effect polygenes. These genes also create a fuller coat of fine texture. Exhibition long hair cats have particularly long hair. It is longer than that which is on randomly bred or naturally occurring long hair cats. Persian breeders say that this cat should be an indoor cat because of the long hair partly.

Ragdoll
This cat breed is 7th on the poll. Please note that there are about 70 cat breeds listed so 7th equates to a place in the top 10% of all mainstream cat breeds. The three most important things about this breed are (a) the breed originates in "ordinary" house cats and was developed from there and (b) the founding breeder, Ann Baker, a Californian, caused some upset by trying to retain rights to the breed (this is almost unique in the Cat Fancy) and (c) the Ragdoll cat character is like any other cat in terms of character but perhaps a little more laid back than some such as the Sphynx for example. This is a pointed long hair cat. This cat, although long haired, requires less maintenance as there is no undercoat (down hairs). This separates this cat out from some other long hair cats.

Himalayan
This breed is 9th in the poll. This is a long haired Persian called by a different name. Long hair cats need more maintenance generally.


Norwegian Forest Cat
This breed is 10th in the poll. This cat was and still is a standard domestic cat in Norway. In 1930 it was decided that this cat was too good looking to remain a mixed-breed cat. Stardom beckoned and the Norwegian Forest Cat became a purebred pedigree cat. There are some fantastic looking NFCs. They are built for the snow, cold and the forest. This means they are great tree climbers - fearless. This is one of the great long hair cats.

Long Hair cats to home page

Dwelf cat

Dwelf cat - copyright the artist Belinda Woodruff.

This cat is one of the Dwarf cats. All are founded on the Munchkin, the best known of the dwarf cat family. The Dwelf cat is a hybrid cat, a cross between the Sphynx, the Munchkin and the Highlander or the American Curl.

Update: I have a nice, new picture of a Dwelf cat from Pinterest:

Dwelf cat. Photo: Pinterest.

Dwelf kittens photo by and from Nancy Raber of Lecrislin Cattery

The Sphynx is an intelligent cat and a cat that may look a bit strange to people outside the cat fancy but this a great cat in fact (see a post on intelligent cat breeds). The Munchkin is a solid looking cat. Both the American Curl and Highlander have curled ears.

This is an Elf cat not  a Dwelf

(The result is a cat that looks like the Elf cat illustrated above. I had used this picture before Nancy provided me with the Dwelf kittens picture above. The picture immediately above is of an Elf cat, a kitten in fact, which gives some idea what a Dwelf cat would look like if a photograph were available. His name is Kessler. The Photo of Kessler is©copyright Kristen Leedom. See this interesting cat at www.elfcats.com and at http://www.sphynx-cattery.com/elfcat.html and you can contact the creators of this breed from the websites.)



The Dwelf cat is a hairless cat with short legs and curled ears. A very similar cat is the Elf cat. The Elf is also a hybrid cat. A cross between the Sphynx and the American Curl. The difference then is the length of the legs.

The only difference in name is the predix dw, being short for "dwarf".

OK, you can read about some genetics on the dwarf cats on this page: dwarf cat genetics. And although dwarf cats are generally healthy, there are some health issues connected to the genetics (such health issues are not restricted to dwarf cats - see genetic diseases in purebred cats).

As this cat carries three mutated genes that produce dwarfism, curled ears and hairlessness, what about the other two genes, the curled ear gene and the hairless gene? Well according to Robinson's Genetics for Cat Breeders & Veterinarians there are no "reported anomalies" associated with the gene that produces curled ears in the homozygous form. This page says a bit more about curled ears: American Curl kittens.

As the hairless gene this I believe is known to be benign (i.e. no associated anomalies).

So the only associated health issues for the Dwelf cat accompany the dwarfism (see above) it seems therefore. The Dwelf cat is still work in progress and can be registered with the Dwarf Cat Association. This breed is also recognized as an experimental cat breed by TICA we are told.

Recognition

However, in the TICA 2006 Genetics Committee semi-annual meeting the recognition of the Dwelf cat was discussed. Interestingly it was stated that the applicant (author) to TICA had already registered one Dwelf cat. The committee were unclear as to how this had happened.

It would seem that one concern was that the Dwelf's appearance due to a combination of 2 genes that affected the cartilage. The Dwarfism gene affects the growth of the tissue (hyaline cartilage) in the long bones (the legs) while the gene that changed the shape of the ear flaps affected the elastic cartilage of the ears. These are different but they grow from the same embryonic stem cells. How would these two genetic mutations interact?

Secondly, there was concern about the proliferation of breeds (my interpretation). There was a proposal to recognize the Minskin another dwarf cat and the Dwelf was a curled eared Minskin. The committee felt that they were being asked to accept a breed that had as part of its make up another unrecognized breed.

In a comment that is enlightening to outsiders to the cat fancy, the committee proposed that TICA does not recognize new cat breeds that do not show new mutations. The objective is/was to stop the proliferation of breeds such as rexed cats and polydactyl cat breeds. The Dwelf cat does not have a novel mutation. That would seem to be the end of recognition of the Dwelf cat. I don't know what happened about the Dwelf cat that was registered.

Dwelf cat to dwarf cats and miniature cats.