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The credit
for this evolutionary fast-forward can be placed squarely
on the Persian's foursquare shoulders. To be fair, actually,
that credit should go to the American shorthair fanciers who
bred some of their cats to Persians and then registered the
resulting kittens as American shorthairs by falsifying their
pedigrees. This slight of glands was committed in the interest
of creating a more dramatic-looking American shorthair and,
hopefully, of taking home a boatload of rosettes and hardware
from cat shows.
Because
vice, like virtue, is its own reward, the new-and-improved
American shorthairs did well in the show ring, despite the
fact that the American shorthair breed standard considered
"any evidence of hybridizing" to be grounds for disqualification.
Many judges, nevertheless, preferred to look the other way
rather than to look askance at the Persian-like development
of some American shorthairs.
Marriages
of Convenience
One person
who was unwilling to hazard whiplash by looking the other
way so often was Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) judge Jane
Martinke, who suggested that CFA create a new breed called
the exotic shorthair. The exotic, which would be judged on
the same standard as the Persian with the exception of coat
length, would be assembled out of breedings between Persians
and any shorthaired cats, and would be accepted in all the
colors in which those breeds occurred. Breeders with bogus
American shorthairs that had been produced through illicit
hybridization would be allowed to transfer their cats to this
newly created amnesty breed without having to answer any embarrassing
questions.
Martinke's
idea was accepted by CFA, and exotic shorthairs became eligible
for championship competition on May 1, 1967; but instead of
allowing breeders to create exotics by crossing any shorthaired
breed with Persians, as Martinke had suggested, CFA restricted
breeders to using American shorthairs. (That restriction,
of course, has not stopped some breeders from slipping a little
Burmese into the mix occasionally.)
Despite
CFA's willingness to let bygones become bylaws, few American
shorthairs were re-baptized as exotics after the breed had
been accorded championship status. So deafening, in fact,
was the sound of no hands clapping, that CFA's executive board
voted unanimously on June 20, 1968, to rescind recognition
of the exotic shorthair because nobody was showing them. Fortunately,
someone at the meeting pointed out that judges were still
complaining about American shorthairs that appeared to have
Persian relatives. What's more, if exotics were disenfranchised,
the people who had begun working with them legitimately would
fall victim to the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished effect. Therefore,
the motion to defrock the exotic was tabled for further discussion.
Additions
and Attractions
The opportunity
to make honest cats out of un-American shorthairs was not
the only convenience offered by the creation of the exotic
shorthair. People who didn't want to risk bursitis and emphysema
from the frequent grooming that Persians require found the
wash-and-wear exotic an engaging option. What's more, breeders
put off by the Persian's delicacy -- some Persians can catch
cold just by looking out the window on a rainy day -- found
the exotic shorthair's hybrid vigor equally attractive.
Whatever
their motivation, persons interested in creating the spitting,
shorthaired image of a Persian had their work -- if not their
cats' conformation -- cut out for them. For one thing, none
of the 10 shorthaired breeds in existence in the late 1960s
looked anything like the Persian's kissing cousin. Thus, the
earliest exotic breeders used American shorthairs (or Burmese
or Russian blues) just often enough, usually once, to introduce
the shorthair gene into their gene pools. After that (in order
to give themselves more breathing room and their cats less)
they bred exotics to Persians. Consequently, most of today's
exotic pedigrees do not reveal the presence of a shorthaired
cat -- other than an exotic, of course -- for many generations.
Yet the shorthair influence, though remote, is difficult to
remove, and even now few people breed one exotic to another
more than once every two or three generations. To do otherwise
is to risk lengthening the nose and shortening the coat on
the exotic.
Making
a Short Story Long
As exotic
shorthairs came to look more and more like Persians, a transformation
that was not accomplished overnight, another problem arose:
What to do with the longhaired exotic shorthairs that could
pass, and sometimes did, for Persians in the show ring? These
cats could not be shown legally, yet they did occur frequently
in breedings between exotic shorthairs and Persians. Long
hair is the handiwork of a recessive gene. In order for a
cat to have long hair, both of the genes it inherits for coat
length must be longhair genes. Persians, therefore, contribute
a longhair gene to every kitten they produce. If the exotic
shorthair to which a Persian is bred also carries a longhair
gene -- the result of having one Persian parent -- half the
kittens in that litter will be longhairs.
The solution
to the longhaired-exotic-shorthair problem was simple: Allow
longhaired exotics to compete as Persians or create a new
breed called the exotic longhair. Most of the cat registries
in North America have adopted one of those solutions. And
at least one association has shortened exotic shorthair
to exotic.
The Building
Code
The exotic
shorthair has a broad, massive, carved-out-of-stone head with
round underlying bone structure and great breadth of skull.
Its ears are small, round-tipped and not unduly open at the
base. Set far apart and tilted forward, the ears should ride
low on the head so as not to distort its rounded contour.
The exotic's cheeks are full, its jaws broad and tweakable,
its chin firm and well-developed. Large, round, wide-set eyes
and a short, snub, broad nose combine to produce the exotic's
Campbell-soup-kid expression.
This glorious
head is connected by a short, thick, linebacker's neck to
a medium-to-large body that has resounding depth across shoulders
and chest, a level back, a hind end like a quarter horse,
and a tail about as long as the distance between the neck
and the tail root.
The exotic's
coat -- short by some standards, medium by others -- is dense,
plush, soft in texture and full of life.
Personality
Profile
As you
might expect from a breed that's 99 percent or more Persian,
the exotic shorthair is sweet, docile and seen but not heard.
Moreover, because the exotic needs less grooming and fewer
baths than the Persian -- and is much less difficult to dry
-- the exotic is less apt to get testy at the sight of a comb
or brush.
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