The showing of pedigree cats has played the central role over the past century in creating the rich spectrum of breeds that delight cat lovers today. Through the shows, breeders have produced many new kinds of cats and had them recognized.
It must be said of course that the artificial selection carried out by breeders has been confined to the human ideal of a good-looking cat. Nobody bothered to ask a cat what it thought! In fashioning cats to charm the human eye, scant attention has been paid to the possible physical disadvantages. However, it is certainly true that genetic engineering has produced fewer harmful effects with pedigree cats than has been the case in some areas of dog breeding.
Should you decide to make a serious foray into cat shows, you must be prepared to spend a lot of time and money, but it will bring great fascination and excitement.
If you have a pedigree cat, or even if you do not, go along to a cat show or two. You will enjoy yourself immensely even though nothing there is likely to convince you that the faithful old tom you left behind snoozing by the fireside, isn’t the most perfect cat on earth!
Heredity and Breeding
Basic mechanisms of heredity
Breeding for showing depends on the workings, be they calculated or accidental or plant contains structures called chromosomes. These look like microscopic string carries details of the design of some particular part of the body. Some genes are concerned with eye colour and so on. The genes are arranged in a fixed order along the length of the chromosome, so the chromosome contains a “blueprint” of the total make-up of an individual (read more..)
The Show
The first cat show on record was held as part of an English fair in the year 1598, but serious showing really only began in 1871, with a large show at London’s Crystal Palace for British Shorthair and Persian types. At about the same time, the first American cat show was held in New England for the Maine Coon breed. British cat shows are still run on the same lines as the early ones, with judges visiting each cat in its pen. Later, some shows had a ring class with cats on leads being paraded en masse around a ring by their owners – you can imagine the fracas that often ensued! Nowadays, cats in the American shows are taken from their pens to be examined in turn by a judge at a judging table, in full view of the public (read more..)
The Cat and the Law
It is great privilege to be owned by a cat. Although many non-pedigree cats are unwanted, and considered by the uninitiated to be of little value, each and every one is worthy of the esteem due to all sentient living creatures. Although they have less protection under the law than dogs, they nevertheless do have certain inalienable rights, and we owners take on legal responsibilities when cats come to share their lives with us (read more..)
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