Abnormal Cat Breeds

What are abnormal cat breeds? As the description implies, they are cat breeds which have been developed because anatomically speaking they can be distinguished from regular-looking cats because they have at least one abnormality. These abnormalities have normally been created because of a spontaneous genetic mutation in a random bred cat. It doesn't matter where the cat lived. It just happens because that is the way nature works. Somebody sees the cat and finds him or her interesting and the news gets back to a cat breeder who wants to develop their own cat breed because they are ambitious.

They pick up the cat and start the long journey into developing a new cat breed. The cat fancy is littered with abnormal cat breeds but they are controversial. Sometimes the abnormality not only concerns the appearance such as the flat ears of the Scottish Fold but also affects the cartilage in other parts of the cat's body. There are health implications. This is the controversial aspect of abnormal cat breeds. An unusual appearance is important for a cat breeder but so is health. And you will find that when a spontaneous genetic mutation causes an abnormality in appearance it can also have undesirable health implications.

I've mentioned the Scottish Fold. Another abnormal cat breed would be the Munchkin. This is the founding dwarf cat. Dwarfism creates small legs under normal-sized bodies. This creates a very cute looking cat and they are popular. But there are two potential health problems linked to this cat breed. And there are about a dozen spin-off breeds from the Munchkin. These are dwarf cat breeds created out of hybridisations; crossing the Munchkin with another cat breed such as the Sphynx. I have a complete list of those breeds on an associated website. I also discussed the two health problems which may affect the dwarf cat which you can read by clicking on this link.

Super-cute Scottish Fold kitten but be careful about health. Picture: Reddit.com

The hairless cats are abnormal cat breeds. There are several variants from the Russian Don Sphynx to the Peterbald and of course there is the well-known American Sphynx cat which is based upon a random bred hairless cat found in Canada. The tailless cats are also abnormal. The Manx is a classic example. Once again there are potentially severe health implications caused by the gene which makes these cats tailless. Breeders have to be very careful because if you breed two Manx cats you can end up with an unviable embryo. You have to crossbreed the cat which dilutes the desired appearance and breeders end up creating cats which are not tailless or in the case of Scottish Fold cats they end up breeding cats with normal ears. What happens to those cats? There is a limited market for them. This is another complication facing breeders of these abnormal cats.

What you find is that some cat associations accept these abnormal cat breeds while others don't. A more tolerant or open-minded cat associations which accepts them is The International cat Association (TICA). A cat Association which rejects them is the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA). They are more traditional in their viewpoint about what should be acceptable in a cat breed. Is the CFA more sensible? This is the controversial aspect of these breeds.

In the UK, the GCCF, the Premier cat Association in the UK, is I would argue somewhat ambivalent about accepting these breeds. They generally reject them which I think is correct because the primary objective for cat breeders should be health and then character and then appearance. But they tend to prioritise their cats in the reverse order. This is because buyers are fascinated with appearance and tend to conveniently brush under the carpet issues of health.

Looking at the hairless cats once again, briefly, you have to keep these cats indoors because without fur they can suffer in cold weather or will be sunburnt in hot weather. Admirers of the hairless cat argue that there is no issue because they will always be particularly careful in caring for their cat and keep them indoors. They do need particular care because the sebaceous glands in their skin delivering the oils for their fur deposit these oils on the skin which attracts dirt. The oil has nowhere to go and therefore it has to be washed off regularly by the cat's owner.

Another arguably abnormal cat breeder is the Ragdoll. It was put out initially that this cat lacks sensitivity to pain and would go limp when held. This may have encouraged children to hurt the cats because they considered them to be toys rather than sentient beings. Their highly placid nature also makes them more vulnerable when outdoors. It is argued that they should be kept indoors and they are well suited to an indoor life. I would not describe the Ragdoll Cat as an abnormal cat breed. They are a regular cat in truth and beautiful as well. Not all Ragdoll cats are floppy and super laid-back. They have their own individual personalities too.

Referring once again to the Scottish Fold. This breed has seen a surge in popularity recently, partly because the well-known celebrity singer, Taylor Swift, adopted two. She is very visible holding her Scottish Fold under her arm. Domestic cats normally have very mobile ear flaps so what happens for the Scottish Fold? They can't move their ears and you know that domestic cats have over 30 muscles moving their flaps. And a domestic cat's ears provide signals to an opposing cat. These signals can no longer be made. There is third issue namely that ear mites may be a particular problem for this breed although I have no evidence that this is the case.

Sometimes abnormal cat breeds are created from a normal breed. The classic example is the flat-faced Persian (peke-faced). This beautiful domestic cat should have a standard or regular-looking face but over many years of selective breeding the cat associations (primarily the CFA) decided to refine, as they saw it, the face and made it flatter and flatter to the point where they developed health issues. Breathing problems became an issue and the tears from the eyes could not drain away because the tear duct became distorted. This creates tears rolling down the side of the face which have to be wiped away by the owner. And the fur is exceptionally long to the point where the cat can no longer self-groom effectively. This also places an added burden upon the human caregiver.

There is no doubt that these abnormal cat breeds although interesting in appearance create added issues and responsibilities for the human caregiver. They were created out of a desire to produce a distinguished cat breed amongst a crowded spectrum of breeds. During the mid-part of the 1900s there was a surge in new breeds, some of them wild cat hybrids. Since those times the range of breeds has been far more settled. There is probably no more room to create a strange new breed with a distinguishing appearance. Those days are over. And it is time, in a world which is more sensitive towards animal welfare, for the cat associations to re-emphasise the importance of health and to modify their breed standards accordingly to gently encourage breeders away from extreme breeding.

Tiger loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA

Photo: Knox County Sheriff's Office. My thanks to the Daily Mail

A tiger is on the loose in Knox County, East Tennessee, USA. They have no idea where it came from. A local zoo has confirmed that their inventory is complete and that none of their Malayan tigers have escaped the facility. The tiger concerned was seen at the Forks of the River Industrial Park on Wednesday night by a police officer, as I understand it.

Location of tiger on the loose:

Since that first sighting there have been multiple reports of sightings of the tiger overnight around John Sevier Highway followed by another sighting at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning near Thornegrove Pike.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is leading the search for the big cat. That was the state of play on Thursday this week. They've set a trap using chickens as bait in an area where the cat was last seen.

Once they have caught the it they will take it to Tiger Haven a rescue centre for big cats in Kingston, Tennessee.

Comment: it appears that this is not a tiger that has escaped from a bona fide "proper" local zoo and therefore readers have to conclude that it has escaped from a private "zoo". They can be very small. The zoo maybe someone's backyard. There may be just two animals. and the tiger may be "domesticated" and someone's pet! There are many thousands of private zoos in America and there are more tigers in America than there are in the entirety of the rest of the world in the wild. 

For me it is slightly amusing although I don't wish to offend anybody. This is because in the UK there are frequent big cat sightings and it is somewhat of a joke because there are no big cats in the UK. There are no private zoos of the type you get in America and I don't think we've had a tiger escaping any zoo for many many decades. If ever. So if somebody sees a big cat in East Tennessee in a field and they photograph it, we can be sure it is real and it will be great to be able to say that. So many big cat sightings are just fictions, the result of fear and sometimes bad news days for the media.

Autistic children bond better with cats because cats don't stare

I don't have access to the full study so I can only make a quick note on this. I'm told that autistic children tend to avoid eye contact. They don't do this on purpose but they miss the significance of it in a social context.

Kitten Stare. Super Cute. Photo Belal Khan on Flickr. Some cats do stare!

A recent study decided that the gaze of domestic cats is less intrusive than that of dogs (and humans?). This may be a reason why some autistic children develop stronger relationships with domestic cat companions compared to dogs. Dogs tend to hold long gazes whereas cats don't like to stare because it indicates a threat.

This may make autistic children more comfortable in their presence. The thought comes from Marine Grandgeorge at the University of Rennes in France.

This is hot off this press so to speak and other websites will publish this information in the future at which point I will be able to add to the article with some more details.

Comment: I'm not sure of the significance of the idea. Perhaps it helps to understand the reasons behind the inability or lack of desire of autistic children to hold eye contact.

Don't stare at your cat! True or False?

Early Chinese study in Wuhan found 15% of tested cats had been exposed to Covid-19

NEWS AND ANALYSIS: An early study on domestic, abandoned, hospitalised and shelter cats in Wuhan by scientists from the Huazhong Agricultural University found that 15% of the cats had antibodies to Covid-19. This means that they had been exposed to the virus because their bodies had created antibodies to defend them. 11 of the cats had neutralising antibodies meaning that they had blocked the infection.

Wuhan during the early stages of the pandemic indicating that residents had abandoned homes and pets

None of the cats tested positive for the virus but they had been exposed to it which is why they had created antibodies. The sample of 102 cats included 41 from five hospitals, three from animal shelters and 45 abandoned cats. 15 of the cats were from families i.e. they were domestic cats in a home.

Three of the cats with the highest levels of antibodies were owned cats. The researchers decided that some of the cats had been affected by other cats from those that had been abandoned or were in pet hospitals. Owned cats had got the disease from their owners it is suggested. None of the cats displayed obvious symptoms and none of them died.

They concluded that these cats got the infection from an environment that had been "polluted" with the Covid-19 virus.

The research is not that significant in my opinion. We know that domestic cats can get the virus from humans but we don't know whether domestic and feral cats are a danger to people in terms of their ability to spread the disease back to people. They say that precautions should be taken. The only interesting aspect of this study is the percentage of cats that had caught or been exposed to the virus which is much higher than previously thought.

Source: Hindustan Times online via a wire feed.

Veterinarians have decided to spay or neuter rather than consider the more delicate tubal ligation (females) or vasectomy (males)

When it comes to preventing the reproduction of unwanted cats, it is universally accepted that the two operations to choose are the spaying (ovariohysterectomy) and neutering (orchidectomy) operations. For the female cat the spaying operation is pretty invasive. It is the removal of her entire reproductive system and it looks quite brutal to be honest. An alternative would be to prevent the eggs from the ovaries going down the fallopian tubes with an operation called a tubal ligation; far less invasive but hardly ever considered.

Female cat in Syria about to undergo the spaying operation. Picture in the public domain.

For male cats, the standard operation is to remove the testes which can be done very quickly with little problems. However some cat owners don't like the thought of this! An alternative would be to allow a domestic cat to keep their balls and to prevent the sperm going down the tube and joining with semen to fertilise the female's egg (vasectomy).

Some male cats might be well-behaved and don't need their behaviour altered by the removal of their testes. Some female cats might be healthy and don't need the added benefits of a full spraying operation which brings health benefits such as the removal of certain cancers and pyometra - an infection of the uterus. It also stops the female cat going into heat. This is a behavioural benefit to many.

The issue that I'd like to discuss is whether in some instances a cat owner wants his or her cat to retain their normal and natural behaviours and simply wants to prevent them reproducing and creating babies. This option is not on the table. Veterinarians don't want to do the lesser operations. One reason possibly is because they are not trained to do tubal ligations and vasectomies according to one report that I read. Secondly, a tubal ligation is a more delicate operation which may put some veterinarians off doing it.

The bottom line is that veterinarians, probably most veterinarians, believe that the added benefits in terms of behaviour and health from the spraying operation pretty well precludes any alternatives and therefore they have shut them out as an option. With respect to the male cats, once again they probably consider the behavioural benefits of removing the cat's balls as being overwhelming and therefore there is no point offering an alternative which is the vasectomy. To do something else would be unethical is what some vets believe. I am not sure they are correct.

And what about the complications and chance of the operation going wrong? These are factors in deciding which option to take. Perhaps a tubal ligation carries less complications. In which case it may be a better operation for certain patients.

I think veterinarians should provide options and allow the customer to help decide. After all the cat belongs to the customer. The customer should be thinking overwhelmingly about their cat's welfare. If they are prepared to deal with the natural behaviours of a male cat who has retained his testes then they have the right to make a decision which achieves that objective. Veterinarians are shortchanging the public it seems to me. The alternatives to spaying and neutering achieve the basic goal: no unwanted cats. The finer issues should be down to choice but at the present that choice is not on the table.