Human Nature to Breed Extreme Looking Cats and Dogs

It is human nature to breed extreme looking cats and dogs. What do I mean? Well, the BBC has recently decided to stop showing the very popular Crufts Dog Show. This really is a big show here in the UK. The audience is very large and the BBC have taken a very brave and correct stance on this. And it isn't just me who agrees with the BBC. A poll run by the Los Angeles Times indicates that 65% of the readers agree with the BBC.

The Kennel Club supported overbreeding of dogs for decades and are now backtracking, having been forced to change their stance by supporting breeding for health and not simply appearance at the expense of health.

Their earlier position in supporting extreme breeding of certain dog breeds for so long indicates that it is human nature to breed extreme looking cats and dogs. It happens a lot more in the dog world than the cat world, it seems to me. But why does it happen at all? Breeders profess to care for their animals. They are tender towards their animals or so it seems. Yet some people breed animals that carry genetic diseases as a result of their breeding programs. In the cat fancy cat breeds such as the Ultra (flat faced) Persian and Modern (rat faced) Siamese are two examples of extreme breeding.

It is all about self-interest. All people operate on the basis of self-interest. We do what is best for us or what we think is best for us. That is why the world is so disjointed. Yet, sometimes doing what is best for the community is ultimately best for the individual. That is common sense. The problem is this. People are not prepared to wait for the longer term benefits that come our way when we do what is best for the community and in any event someone will buck the system, abuse the system and that forces people to act solely in self interest.

In the cat fancy working towards self interest only and not in the general interest of the cat fancy (on a long term basis) translates to breeding a cat that is more outstanding, that wins prizes. The judges at cat shows have awarded prizes to the most outstanding cats in terms of appearance. They have never asked for medical records or pronounced to those viewing that the cat has a wonderful character and is in fine health with no genetic diseases (note: a cat's character in terms of aggression is noted but finer points of character are not it seems). That is relatively uninteresting to the public. We can't see the character of the cat and we can't see the whether the cat is carrying defective genes. These are more subtle factors. These are long term issues.

People are more inclined to seek instant satisfaction when serving self-interest. It needs to be immediate. The more immediate the better as that serves self-interest better.

The cat associations (as the Kennel Club should have done many years ago) should focus more on long term benefits. This means supporting the underlying and less glamorous elements of cat breeding and the more difficult issues, namely genetic diseases, breeding for health and focusing on character. Could there be a character test at a cat show? Could the associations exclude any cat that didn't pass certain medical tests?

The associations should also be less anally retentive. I'm thinking more of the CFA here. They need to think wider and see the bigger issues. The issues about abandoned cats and destroyed cats. The associations are linked to these more fundamental issues. They are too insular. Yes, it is is human nature to breed extreme looking cats and dogs for the wrong reasons. Controlling this urge will bring big long term rewards.

Human Nature to Breed Extreme Looking Cats and Dogs to Genetic Diseases in Purebred Cats

China Animal Welfare

Sleeping cat in China -- what are the prospects for this cat? -- Photo by : f o r r e s t :

Is China Animal Welfare on the up and up? It's got a long way to go, so it should be. I was surprised and delighted to read that an International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) poll indicated that 90% of people in China, South Korea and Vietnam are concerned about animal welfare; specifically "we have a moral duty to minimise suffering."

The percentage of people in Britain who have the same sentiments is 91% and we are considered to be a nation of animal lovers. So the vast majority of Chinese people are essentially animal lovers, according to this poll.

The Chinese government is yet to enact animal welfare laws in respect of domestic animals. There are wildlife protection laws but I am not sure how effectively they are enforced. I hope against hope that China will enact and enforce animal welfare laws asap. And get rid of the horrible habit in some southern areas of half killing and eating domestic cats and dogs.

Perhaps the point is this. There are over a billion Chinese. So, if 10% of the population are not concerned with animal welfare then over 100 million people are not concerned about animal suffering. That is almost one and a half times the population of the UK. There are then a large number of people who don't care about animal suffering and who are prepared to make them suffer in the name of commerce; the fur trade being one notorious example.

I am pleased, as are all decent people who care about animals, about the results of the poll, but this survey is not that helpful, in my opinion. What percentage of the government of China care about animals? What percentage of the police, who are going to have to enforce the laws care about animals? Will the government, when they finally enact laws, set up a special enforcement agency? In the UK we have the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Protection of Animals).

The real issues are about the will of the government and the large numbers (not percentages) of people who don't care. There is also the very entrenched habits of this 10% of people of China who don't care about cat and animal welfare. These will take more than one generation to eradicate. I am glad that the subject of China animal welfare is being discussed but realism needs to be in mind.

In Vietnam the animal welfare legislation is minimal and in Korea non-existent.

My particular area of concern is cats. Their protection falls under all animal welfare laws, of course. See more on world laws in relation to cats, animals and wild animals:

China Animal Welfare Downing Street Petition

Cats and Law

China Cat Animal Welfare Protection

China Animal Welfare to Home Page

Taking in a Stray Cat

Stray cat - photo copyright MAR

Taking in a stray cat can bring all sorts of problems even if one is compelled to do it. What else can one do sometimes?

I don't know what it is, but stray cats seem to find their way to my home. They just turn up, very furtively. They slink in, look around and head for the food. So, what do I do? I let 'em eat it. Then what happens?

Before long I have turned my home into a cat's version of a soup kitchen for down and outs. And then not long after that you've got the question as to whether they can start living with you because that point will certainly arrive.

Timmy is one such case. He is an unneutered boy. Well he looks unneutered. He has jowls (chunky cheeks). He also has a mighty appetite. He'll eat four to five portions at one sitting. This is more, lots more, than my girlfriend eats at one sitting and about the same as I eat, perhaps a bit less. He actually eats more, generally, than my girlfriend! His stomach bulges and he then sleeps - what else?

He now comes in at night and sleeps on my bed, on the little cat cushion I bought for my cat, Binnie. How does she feel about this? She lost her cushion for part of the night. She is a most tolerant cat but I do not want to abuse that tolerance. He was here on the bed last night, stretched out snoring blocking my legs and waiting patiently for me to get up and, yes, feed him some more. Yes, taking in a stray cat creates new responsibilities.

In order to put a brake on cost, I now feed him dry cat food a little more. This also allows him to graze when he comes in at night. But dry cat food alone is not, in my view, good enough. It should be varied with wet and some raw or perhaps well chosen human food. But this costs and, yep, another stray has just arrived.

This time it is a most delightful all black, fine and densely coated, little girl cat with a pixie face. I call her Pippa or Pip for short. She is very sweet and nervous. She slides in unnoticed, eats quickly and clears off as fast. But I love her so I have got to talking with her (you know how it is) and she seems to be starved of TLC. She responds well to a stroke and some care.

Where is that going to lead to? More trouble in a way. More cost certainly but she likes biscuits, which helps. One problem is my girl cat, Binnie. She is upset about Pippa and I don't blame her. She hissed at Pip the other day. She doesn't hiss at Timmy, she just trills at him. There is a kind of natural hierarchy forming here.

Taking in a Stray Cat is good and bad. There are complications. There shouldn't be stray cats. I think I know who Pippa lives with so I will have to deal with that person. The trouble is I have already had dealings with this person and the conversation didn't go too well....

Taking in a Stray Cat to Dry cat Food

Pictures-of-Cats.org Diary

This is an entry in the Pictures-of-Cats.org Diary. I thought I'd start to diarise the building and maintenance of the www.pictures-of-cats.org website. For all budding website builders this might have some value.

I've been building for about 18 months now. I work on the site each day and try and build at least one page a day. With the Blogger site I can build more quickly so it works about at nearer 2-3 sometimes. Some of the major pages can take several days to build.

What is the overriding sentiment that I have after working on the www.pictures-of-cats.org website for 18 months? This is it: it is hard, very hard to increase the number of visitors. The site is doing well. It get more traffic (per Alexa) than the Cat Fanciers Association website, for example. It gets more than www.messybeast.com, for example. There are a few (perhaps 2 or 3) cat websites that get more traffic in the world, yet I would like more and this is proving a challenge.

At a certain point attracting more traffic gets harder. You get a fairly steep curve and then it plateaus out. The most important personal characteristic in website building is persistence, no doubt about it.

The current Alexa ranking is about 110K. The current page views are hard to calc. but according to SBI it is somewhere in the order of 3-400,000 per month. It may be a lot more as SBI doesn't measure this Blogger site for page views. SBI tells me I get about 4,000 unique visitors per day to the main website to which I could perhaps add 1-2,000 for the Blogger site.

I am currently working on a page about cat head shape, having just finished a page on cat body types. These are, in a way, specialist areas about the workings of cat fancy people, people who are involved in showing top quality purebred but still of interest to those of us who like cats.

Bengal Cat Sundog

Bengal Cat Sundog, the very well known Bengal cat of Julie Gracie Moseley of ZenDada Bengals - Austin TX , has a wonderful classic (blotched) marble tabby pattern:


Photo copyright Helmi Fick -- click on the link to see this image in large format.

Sundog, in fact, is one of the best known Bengal cats in the world. I guess Julie Gracie Moseley is one of the best known Bengal cat breeders. You can see more of her work here: Marble Bengal Cat.

What is surprising is that the gloriously high contrast and high quality pattern has, in places, a 3-dimensional appearance. The hair of the pattern is slightly longer than the background. Julie Grace Moseley calls this 3D Spine Lines:


Bengal Cat Sundog. Photo copyright Julie Grace Moseley. This photo came from an email published on the Marbled Bengals Yahoo Group. I have made a decision to publish it here as it is the first time that I have seen a picture of these 3D Spine Lines. The picture was taken with a camera phone. I have provided a link to her cattery: Zendada Bengals.

On a simple level, all this means is that the dark patter fur is longer than the background. But it goes further. Is the hair finer? Does it feel different? I'd like to know. It must make the experience of stroking this cat a little special. Also, is this typical of all Bengals with a marble pattern. I am sure not. So what happened with Sundog? Lots of questions. I hope someone can leave a comment to answer them.

Apparently the King Cheetah has a similarly raised pattern. See more on the King Cheetah.

Bengal Cat Sundog to Bengal Cats for Sale