Cat Basics
Little do people know that there are several terms to identify cats—purebred, tabby and DSH. Today, there are over 70 breeds of cats recognized by cat registries and over 100 breeds of pedigree cats.
Kinds of breeds:
Pedigreed cats: To be registered as a pedigreed cat, it should have a traceable history going back many generations. Pedigreed cats can be divided into five groups—Persians or Longhairs, other Longhairs, British Shorthairs, Foreign and Oriental Shorthairs.
Persian Longhair: This cat has a round face and large round eyes, short fat legs and a short tail with a thick woolly coat that mats easily. Its Shorthair version is usually called the Exotic, which does not have the heavy coat but has all the personality and physical characteristics of the Persian.
Other Longhairs: Their coats are silkier in texture than the Persian. Their heads and body shapes are different, too, and they have longer-bodies and a wedge-shaped head, and have longer tails and legs, with differing personality traits too.
British Shorthair: This tough-looking cat with a short face and a dense coat is well known for its one variety called the British Blue.
Oriental: These are long bodied dogs with fine coats, oblique eyes and well-boned and slender dogs.
Foreign: This type isn’t as long as the Oriental but slender and with a more muscular physique and its head is a modified wedge. Its head is longer than the British Shorthair but less triangular than the Foreign.
Mixed breed: Such cats do not have any distinctive features of a purebred, such as Maine Coon mix, Persian mix and Siamese mix.
Domestic cats: An ordinary non-pedigreed cat can belong to either of these categories:
- DSH: Domestic Shorthair
- DLH: Domestic Longhair
- DMH: Domestic Medium length hair
- Polydactyl cats: Also called "Hemingway cats", these cats don’t necessarily belong to a breed but are polydactyl or have many toes, which is a genetic defect.
- Tri-color Cats: These include:
- Calico: The coats of these cats are in solid blocks of red, black and white, and might also have blocks of tabby pattern. You might also come across diluted calicos with the same arrangement of colors but in a weak form,orange and gray.
- Tortoiseshell cats: They too are dilute with white markings and in softer versions of the tortoiseshell colors. There is very little of white in their coloring and it is predominantly red and black. Since tri-color cats are usually so because of their genetic make-up, they are always females, with only very few being males who are sterile.
- Tuxedo: These cats have glossy black coats that draw especial attention to them due to their white bigs and spats or white feet.
Top 20: The top 20 cat breeds are:
1. Persian Cat 2. Himalayan 3. Siamese Cat 4. Bengal Cat 5. Maine Coon 6. Ragdoll Cat 7. Pixie Bob 8. Russian Blue 9. Manx Cat 10. Munchkin 11. Sphynx Cat 12. Abyssinian 13. Devon Rex 14. Birman Cat 15. Savannah Cat 16. Desert Lynx 17. Tonkinese Cat 18. Exotic Shorthair 19. Egyptian Mau 20. British Short
These are the cat breeds that you are likely to come across. Does this tempt you to take a kitten home today?