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The first
modern-day cat show, the original standards for judging cats
in competition, the first national cat club and the earliest
comprehensive book on exhibiting cats were all produced in
England between the particularly fertile years from 1871 and
1889. Prominently displayed, described, and dignified in those
creations was a hearty race of British shorthair cat, whose
ancestors had arrived in Northern Europe - and subsequently
in Great Britain - courtesy of the Roman Empire and its soldiers
nearly 1900 years before. During the intervening centuries
the "native" British shorthair had developed into a strong,
effective hunter as well as a loyal, level-headed companion.
Blue-Ribbon
Breed
Despite
their working class station in life - they had formerly been
called mongrel or street cats - British shorthairs appeared
in large numbers in cat shows at London's Crystal Palace during
the last quarter of the 19th century. There were classes for
solid colors, tabbies, smokes, bicolors and tortoiseshells;
but Harrison Weir, who founded the cat fancy and wrote the
first set of standards by which cats were judged, "deemed
it advisable... to give special prizes" to blue British shorthairs
because of their beauty and popularity. Indeed, the best-in-show
winner at the first cat show, held in the Crystal Palace in
1871, was a 14-year-old blue female that belonged to Weir.
"British
blues," as they were popularly known, were listed separately
from the other non-foreign shorthairs by the Governing Council
of the Cat Fancy in Great Britain for many years; and some
people in this country occasionally refer to the British blue
as though it were a separate breed here, also. It is not.
It is, rather, one of a large variety of colors in which the
British shorthair occurs.
First
Aid Kits
Few things
in life or in the cat fancy evaporate faster than popularity.
By the turn of the century shorthair domestic cats in Britain
had declined in status from something of the cat's meow to
something that the cat fancy had dragged in and then abandoned.
When longhair cats began to appear at shows in England, they
attracted considerable interest.
"With
the majority of fanciers, the long-haired cats are the most
popular," wrote English breeder and judge Frances Simpson
in 1903. By that time Persians and other longhair cats - namely
the Angora and the Russian - outnumbered shorthairs four-to-one
at shows. After spending four and a half pages on longhairs,
Simpson begins a two-page discussion of shorthairs with a
less-than-enthusiastic "And now to consider ..." When she
does consider black-and-white and tabby-and-white shorthairs,
Simpson declares, "It seems almost a pity to so far encourage
these cats as to give classes for them at our shows."
Bad came
to worse for the British shorthair during World Wars I and
II. These conflicts had a detrimental effect on the cat fancy
in England, and the British shorthair suffered a near fatal
setback. Breeders had trouble finding suitable studs for their
females. Inspired by the twin needs of convenience and survival,
British shorthair fanciers resorted to outcrosses to keep
the breed alive. Their restorative of choice was the Persian,
whose influence eventually spawned a new kind of shorthair
cat. Originally described as having "small" heads; noses "rather
long than short"; "long and slender" necks; and "narrow. .
. graceful" bodies, British shorthairs metamorphosed into
the short-faced, close-coupled minivans in fur that they are
today.
The Persian
influence enhanced the British shorthair to such an extent
that judges were quick to reward these hybrid cats in the
show ring. Eventually, however, the breed purity police decreed
that "any evidence of hybridization" was cause for disqualification
in British shorthair classes; but by then so much hybridization
had occurred that the regulation made as little impact as
an unarmed policeman. Finally, the Persian was accepted as
an allowable outcross for the British shorthair in Great Britain.
This development caused problems for Americans who wanted
to import British shorthairs, because cat registries in North
America would not register a cat unless it was descended from
at least three generations of British-to-British breedings.
Atlantic
Crossing
When the
custom of recording cats' ancestors began to take root in
the United States, the first "American" shorthair cat registered
by the Cat Fanciers' Association was an orange tabby British
shorthair male that had been imported from England around
1901. This cat was not only imported but also came flaunting
the unlikely name of Belle.
The breed
in which Belle and subsequent British imports were enrolled
was simply called shorthair. Sometime later domestic was prefixed
to that designation, a nod to the presence of "native" sons
and daughters - many of unknown parentage - in pedigreed breeding
programs in the United States.
Despite
the importation of a number of shorthair cats in the early
part of this century, American cat fanciers had trouble enough
gaining the proper respect for the domestic shorthair without
bothering to try to establish an imported shorthair in the
bargain. Consequently, there was little continued American
interest in pedigreed shorthairs from Great Britain until
the mid-1960s. In 1970 the American Cat Fanciers Association
became the first American registry to recognize British shorthairs
- in blue and black only. Eventually all other colors of the
breed were accepted by all associations. Today, more British
colors are being seen on the show bench than ever before,
and the solid - or blue self color - is not as dominant as
it once was.
Although
the British shorthair has achieved moderate popularity in
the United States, where it ranked 18th out of 37 breeds registered
by the Cat Fanciers' Association last year, it is considerably
more popular in its native land. The Governing Council of
the Cat Fancy in England registered 4,572 new British shorthairs
last year, an increase of 7 percent over the preceding year,
and the British shorthair ranked 3rd out of 26 breeds registered
in England during 1998.
The
Building Code
The British
shorthair is a medium-to-large-size cat with a round, substantial
chest, broad shoulders and hips, and a level back. Its well-muscled
body - "almost square" by some definitions - is supported
by stoutly boned, short to medium legs that give the cat a
low-slung appearance. This majestic package is wrapped in
a short, dense, resilient coat that is somewhat longer than
other shorthairs' but never wooly.
A thick,
bull-like neck supports the British shorthair's broad, massive,
well-rounded head, capped with small-to-medium-size ears that
are broad at the base and round at the tips. Some associations
decree that the base of the inner ear should be perpendicular
to the outer corner of the eye, while others merely caution
that the ears should be set wide apart but not extreme.
The British
shorthair has large, round eyes. Its nose is short but without
a break (a change of direction where the forehead meets the
muzzle). Ample cheeks and a well-developed muzzle give the
British shorthair, in the words of one association, "a chubby
chipmunk appearance."
Personality
Profile
British
shorthairs bear a remarkable likeness to a plush, stuffed
animal. "They have that nice, lavish coat you can sink your
fingers into," says one British shorthair fancier. "And, they
have a permanent smile on their faces."
Temperamentally
the British shorthair is a quiet, unobtrusive cat, the polar
opposite of the nervous, busy feline that has to be moving
about all the time. In truth, the British certain possesses
a certain British reserve. This is an affectionate cat that
will seek out and enjoy attention, but quietly and without
the clinging obsequiousness that characterizes some breeds
of cats.
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