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Those
feline immigrants and their descendants were expected to pay
their own way and to make their own matrimonial arrangements.
When people have a continent to tame and an existing population
to decimate, they haven't much time to be fussing over cats
or to keep track of which mouser begat which out in the barn.
The cat fancy, like all other animal hobbies, is a by-product
of leisure.
Boy
Belle
For all
the benign neglect it received, "America's own breed" did
quite nicely for itself, and by the beginning of this century
had even begun to attract some notice from cat fanciers. That
attraction was slight, however, because another "native" American
breed, the Maine coon cat, which also had descended from European
stock, was the favorite son and daughter of cat fanciers in
this country. Thus, when the custom of recording cats' ancestors
began to take root here, the first "American" shorthair cat
registered by the Cat Fanciers' Association was an orange
tabby male that had been imported from England around 1901.
This cat was not only imported but also came flaunting the
unlikely name of Belle. If that wasn't enough to set
the guys down at the docks to snickering, what was?
The breed
in which Belle was 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. As if to compensate for Belle's swishy
name, the first registered domestic shorthair born in this
country was called Buster Brown, a handle that left
no doubt about which way its owner saddled up.
Prophets
Without Honors
American
breeders eventually stopped importing domestic shorthair cats
from England, but until the middle of this century the domestic
shorthair was granted little more than working-class status
in a feline social order dominated by Persians, Siamese and
other foreign breeds. Domestic shorthairs were frequently
entered in the household pet class at cat shows, a class created
to allow people to exhibit cats that didn't appear to be "purebred."
Moreover, when domestic shorthairs did compete in championship
classes, they weren't always treated kindly. Cat show judge
and author Kay McQuillen, who began showing cats in 1938,
has written that frequently the clubs sponsoring shows didn't
bother to provide cages for domestic shorthairs, nor did some
clubs offer trophies or rosettes for the winners in domestic
classes. Obviously "America's own breed" was slow in being
adopted by its own closest human neighbors.
Celebrating
the '60s
As the
1960s boogied their way free of the Eisenhower years' paint-by-numbers
influence, domestic shorthair breeders fell in step with the
social and cultural revolution. Perhaps they didn't go marching
off to San Francisco in great numbers with flowers in their
hair, but they did vote to exchange the serviceable, straightforward
domestic shorthair label for the muscular-sounding
American shorthair tag as of the beginning of the 1966
show season.
Coincident
with this change the American shorthair also underwent a change
in fashion. Noses, bodies, legs and tails began to grow short,
while coats grew more plush. These alterations were accomplished
through selective breeding, which sometimes involved the selection
of Persians as mates for American shorthairs. Such crossbreedings
are not legal in the cat fancy, and if you try to register
an American shorthair kitten that has one Persian parent,
the registry to which you make application will return your
check. For many years, however, thanks to the generosity of
open registration, people were allowed to register American
shorthairs that had one parent of "unknown origin." Here's
how open registration worked.
Suppose
you saw a domestic shorthair cat in the front yard.
By domestic shorthair I mean any of the nonpedigreed descendants
of the ships' cats that fathered and mothered this country's
feline population. Anyway, this shorthair cat that showed
up in your front yard either resembled the cats you had been
showing as American shorthairs or it sported a color you'd
like to add to your cats' wardrobe. So you took a picture
of the cat, wrote up a description of it and sent the photo
and description, along with the appropriate registration fee,
to one of the cat blocs that permitted open registration.
That group then sent you a registration certificate for that
cat and permitted you to use the cat in your breeding
program.
Like any
honor system open registration allowed dishonorable types
to flourish. Nothing but the thin wall of conscience prevented
people from registering a domestic shorthair of unknown origin
and then using another cat in its place in an American shorthair
breeding program. In fact, breeders arranged so many of these
no-tell-motel assignations for American shorthairs -- primarily
with Persian cats -- that a new breed, the exotic shorthair,
was recognized officially in 1967. This breed, which has as
its components Persians and American shorthairs, gave breeders
whom had been indulging in un-American activities a chance
to make honest women and men of their hybrid kittens.
Even after
the exotic shorthair had been recognized, American shorthair
breeders continued to use Persians, the occasional Burmese
and -- how's this for dramatic irony? -- the newly created
exotic shorthair to produced cats with rounder heads, sturdier
bone and a better chance of winning prizes in cat shows. The
silver tabby American shorthair, the breed's most plentiful
color, would not exist if certain inventive people had not
bred chinchilla Persians to American shorthairs under the
see-no-evil gaze of open registration.
America's
Real Breed
The pedigreed
American shorthair bears about as much resemblance to the
domestic shorthair cat found in most American homes, streets,
fields and barns as Air Jordans do to regular sneakers. Indeed,
anyone compelled to label either of these cats "America's
own breed" would be more correct in applying that honorific
to the nonpedigreed domestic shorthair variety. This feline,
which graces our windows and sofas, patrols our barns, chooses
its own company, ekes out an existence in our fields and alleyways,
and gets along, in large measure and numbers, without benefit
of human intervention has remained free of the addition of
"foreign" blood to its gene pool. Make no mistake about it,
domestic shorthairs and American shorthairs are so little
related as to constitute, for all intents and purposes, two
separate breeds; and of those breeds it is the domestic shorthair
that can trace its heritage more directly and definitively
to the cats that accompanied the first settlers to this country.
What's more, domestic shorthairs outnumber the pedigreed variety
by at least 50 to one in the United States.
The
Building Code
The American
shorthair is a muscular, solidly built, medium-to-large-size
cat. Somewhat longer than it is tail, it has well-developed
shoulders, a deep chest and powerful hindquarters. Its head
is broad and well rounded with ample cheeks and a pleasant,
open -- some would say smiling -- expression. Its medium-size
ears are slightly rounded at the tips, but not excessively
open at the base.
There
are some differences in taste among cat associations regarding
eye shape and size in the American shorthair. One association
mandates medium to large eyes; another wants to see large
eyes with a round lower lid and an upper lid shaped like an
almond that's been cut lengthwise. Several associations prefer
round eyes, but one fancies eyes that are oval in shape.
The American
shorthair has a medium to medium-short nose with a dip in
the profile or a moderate stop (depression in the face at
the junction of the forehead and muzzle). The nose should
not have a break (change of direction where the forehead meets
the muzzle), nor should it be excessively short. The muzzle
is squared, and the chin forms a perpendicular line with the
upper lip.
Some cat
associations decree that the American shorthair coat ought
to be short, lustrous, well-bodied and close lying. One association,
however, describes the coat as short, thick, even and hard
in texture. Another group prefers a short, even coat; while
still another registry wants a medium-length, well-bodied
coat.
The American
shorthair's coat, no matter what its texture, comes in a plentitude
of colors from the near-ubiquitous tabby, with or without
white adornments, to the less frequently seen but equally
beautiful solid-colored cats -- more than 80 combinations
of color and pattern in all.
Personality
Profile
If the
American shorthair was slow to catch the cat fancy's eye,
it has always been quick to warm its owners' hearts. "I chose
the American shorthair because I wanted a cat that I could
live with and enjoy," said one breeder. "The American shorthair
is friendly, but not too demanding. If you want an extremely
affectionate, demanding cat, the American shorthair is not
for you. If you want a cat that's just going to sit there,
it's not for you, either. What it does offer is that very
happy medium, and it's not really neurotic in any way. In
fact, American shorthair breeders are so crazy about their
cats' temperaments, they're bound and determined to keep them
that way at all costs."
Some cat
fanciers are wont to call the American shorthair "a true breed
of working cat." One cannot be sure what is meant by this
statement. Cats do not "work" in the same sense that dogs
work, i.e., by pulling sleds, herding flocks, guarding houses
or guiding the disabled. Cats will catch mice for food and/or
amusement, so perhaps that is what people mean when they say
the American shorthair is a "true breed of working cat."
We hope
they do not mean to imply, though, that the American shorthair
is in some way better at catching mice than its distantly
related "alley cat" cousins are. I've got a pair of brown
tabby domestic shorthairs of no particular particulars who
tell me they have slain more creatures great and small than
any two "fancy show cats" you could name.
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