Posted by Jeanne on January 30, 2009
Show standards are quite specific on the general conformation of cats, but may become complex and variable, depending on the association consulted or the fashion from year to year, with regard to coloration and marking.
What makes show cats beautiful, special, and rare is the fact that attractions like long hair or unusual coat and eye colors are, biologically speaking, recessive characteristics. They are cultivated by patient and careful breeding, until all vestiges of tabby markings, say, are gone from the Siamese and disfiguring, off-color splotches are eliminated from pure white, black, blue, and so on.
Just how delicate this balance is and just how recessive a recessive characteristic can be has been proved time and again by the mating – accidental, of course – of a fancy-shmancy with a common cat who has no style but is bulging with gross, salt-of-the-earth, dominant characteristics. The kittens invariably come up plain cat, with tiger stripes and yellow eyes, and no faint trace of grand lineage in any feature.
The mating of two common cats is equally unpredictable. Often as not, a pair of attractively marked parents will produce babies with random spots and blotches – black eyes, striped noses, and so forth – that are most unbecoming. The same may be true of size and shape. A compact, neatly built mother cat may find her youngsters growing up to be thin-shanked, lean-bodied critters with no family resemblance at all.
If the owner likes cats impartially this will be no problem. Certainly it has never troubled cats. They are not self-conscious about aesthetic defects; none has ever felt out of place at a social gathering.
As a matter of fact, cats of all breeds always try to look as presentable as circumstances allow and seem to have an eye for tasteful backgrounds – white bedspreads, red chairs, bouquets of flowers – which set them off to advantage. There may be other, simpler reasons for it, but there is no denying that cats have a sense of the dramatic. Every cat, whether a purebred Persian lolling on a silken pillow or a nameless waif resting beside an alley trash can, looks as though she expected to be looked at and, better still, admired.
Posted by Jeanne on January 20, 2009
The long-hairs originally were called Angoras after the Ankara (the capitol of Turkey) in which Europeans apparently first encountered them. Actually, they seem to have been known in and imported from India and central Asia as well. For a long time people tried to distinguish between the “true” Angora and the Persians generally, but the differences, small to begin with, were further confused by interbreeding.
The long-hair is enormously fluffy and can look extremely haughty. But under the silky coat is a sturdy body and a warm heart. While long-hairs may seem languorous, they are cats first of all and entirely capable of the fun and games cats traditionally enjoy. Since they are expensive, their owners aren’t often inclined to expose them to the many perils and pleasures of the out-of-doors.
The long-hair is blockier in all dimensions than the short-hair. Its body, legs, and tail are shorter, its chest and rump wider. The front legs should be shorter than the hind pair and stand straight and firm.
The head should be broader than the short-hair’s, and the breadth accentuated by a short, pushed-in nose. The ears should sit on the side of the head and have a little tuft of fur at the point. The larger and rounder the eyes, the better.
The fur should be long and glossy, with a luxurious ruff around the neck and on the chest, between the forelegs. The tail should have a tuft at the tip.
Long-hairs come in a wonderful array of colors: white, black, orange, cream, blue, smoke, silver, tortoise-shell, and tabby. AU the solid colors must be pure; the black mustn’t have so much as a single white hair anywhere; the blue must be all blue – the whiskers and exposed skin, such as lips and pads of feet, as well as the fur.
Perhaps most sensational is the silver or chinchilla Persian. The basic coat is pure snow white, with each hair tipped in black. The tortoise-shell is black, red and yellow.
The tabby, which may be long or short-haired, comes in a variety of types, each with rigidly specified markings. Whatever the color com-bination, the tabby should have a light ground color against which her stripes, spots and bars may be distinctly seen. The tabby, incidentally, may be male or female. Tabby is not short for Tabitha, the traditional name for females (as Tom is for males), but comes from Atab, a street in Baghdad famous for watered silks, which suggest the rich and intricate markings of the tabby cat.
Along with perfect color and markings, the deluxe cat must have eyes of an appropriate shade. Most desirable with white fur are blue eyes (although this triumph of breeding seems to leave most blue-eyed whites deaf as a post). The silver should have emerald-green. Most of the others should range from orange, or amber, to yellow.
Among other breeding oddities is the fact that orange-colored females and tortoise-shell males are very rare.
