Cheshire Cat Clinic / Domestic Cat Breeds

Purebred (Pure breed Cats)

Pure breed cats are produced by selective breeding of domestic cats with the assistance of humans. When the cat’s ancestry is formally registered it is called a purebred and when its lineage is recorded, it becomes pedigreed. Thus a purebred cat is one whose ancestry contains only individuals of the same breed. The cats are inbred or line bred until the genes that produce the desired traits are concentrated and the desired trait becomes characteristic of the line of cats. The number of generations required varies from breed to breed, but all pedigreed cats have papers from the registering body that attest to its ancestry.

Pedigreed Cats

A pedigreed does not have to be a purebred. It may arise from cats that have been selectively bred or that have ancestors of different breeds if its ancestry is recorded and tracked by a major cat registry. The list of cat breeds is quite large: most cat registries actually recognize between 30 and 40 breeds of cats, and several more are in development, that have distinct features and heritage.

Natural breed cats

Natural breeds of cat are breeds that have developed without the assistance of humans or selective breeding. Because of common crossbreeding in populated areas, many cats are simply identified as belonging to the homogeneous breeds of domestic longhair and domestic shorthair, depending on their type of fur. These natural cat breeds have a distinct phenotype (appearance) that is the main type occurring naturally as the dominant domesticated cat type in their region of origin. In this case we classify the cats as either domestic short hair or domestic long hair cats and identify them by their hair coat color and pattern.

Recognized Cat Breeds

· Longhair and Semi-Longhair Cat Breeds

· Aegean cat

· American Longhair

· Asian Semi-longhair (or Tiffanie)

· Balinese

· Birman

· British Longhair

· Chantilly/Tiffany cat

· Himalayan (USA) or Colourpoint (rest of world).

· Javanese

· Maine Coon