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The primary
force behind this raspberry was Evelyn Mague, who personified
the adage: Breeding well is the best revenge. Until destiny
came sidling up to her door in 1969, Mague was the president
of a private cat shelter in Gillette, New Jersey. She was
also a breeder of Abyssinian cats -- shorthaired, elegant
creations with softly rounded, wedge-shaped heads and ticked
coats in which the individual hairs accommodate contrasting
bands of color.
By
George
When destiny
rang Evelyn Mague's bell, it came in the guise of a one-year-old
Abyssinian cat named George, who, unlike the majority of his
brethren and sistren, had long hair. George was accompanied
to Mague's shelter by his fifth owner. No one but politicians
and people with their photos in the post office move that
many times in a year, but here was George with failed-cat-owner
number five. We say failed because none of those dear hearts
had seen fit to keep George more than an average of 9.5 weeks,
and none had been fit to have George vaccinated and/or neutered.
While we're handing out citations, we might as well add George's
breeder to the lineup. He or she had sent George out into
the world when he was five weeks old. That's seven weeks shy
of the earliest age at which cats are placed by prudent breeders.
If luck
were gasoline, poor George wouldn't have had enough to drive
a baby gnat's snowmobile half way around a dime, but his luck
was about to change. "When I opened the door," said Mague,
"I thought here was the most beautiful cat I had ever seen."
So there
was Mague, as smitten then as any woman now might be after
seeing her first Leonardo diCaprio movie. Yet despite her
titanic fondness for George, Mague was only his penultimate
keeper. George would have been welcome to stay at her house
but for the fact that he wasn't used to being around other
cats, and Mague had other cats. Therefore, her fascination
with George notwithstanding, she had him vaccinated and neutered
and hung a $75 price tag on him, operating on the theory that
most people value something in proportion to what they pay
for it. George was eventually sold to someone who didn't have
any other cats.
Home
is Where?
George's
stay at Mague's was something of homecoming for him. Even
though he hadn't been born there, his mother, a shorthaired
Abyssinian, was living there, having just been acquired by
Mague from someone who had given up breeding. George's father,
another shorthaired Aby, was living there, too. In fact, he
had been born there. This meant that someone whom Mague had
allowed to breed a cat to George's father had let one of the
kittens go at the criminally young age of five weeks. Breeders
don't like to be associated with that sort of greedoid behavior.
As Mague noted, "This little longhair had been no better off
than an unpedigreed cat in the street" -- just because he
had long hair. No matter that he was, in Mague's opinion,
"the most beautiful cat" she had ever seen. No matter that
some of the finest Abyssinian bloodlines in the country coursed
through George's pedigree. What mattered was that he had committed
the unpardonable offense of being born with hair that was
not the correct length. The standard specifies a short to
medium coat. This cat has a semilong coat. He can't be shown
or used for breeding. Yank him off that nipple and send him
out the door.
Getting
Mad and Even
The more
Evelyn Mague thought about the shameful way George had been
treated, the more she was determined to find another longhaired
Abyssinian and to take that cat to shows. Better still, in
memory of the original George she would seek out other Georges,
and they would go forth and be fruitful. And also be the burr
under the girths of a lot of Abyssinian breeders.
Cats being
known for their graciousness, George's parents did not object
to assisting Mague in creating a new breed. How many cats
get to play Adam and Eve? Heck, how many people get to? Genetics
being a taut little exercise, Mague was certain that although
George's parents were shorthairs, they each possessed a gene
for long hair. Because the longhair gene is recessive to the
shorthair gene, if two shorthair cats produce a longhaired
kitten, each parent must be carrying the longhair gene. She
also knew that on average George's parents would produce one
longhaired kitten in each litter of four.
Sure enough,
the breeding that had produced George produced another longhaired
Abyssinian, this one a female born on January 3, 1972. This
kitten and others like her, in turn, produced dyspepsia in
most Abyssinian breeders when longhaired Abys began turning
up in experimental classes at shows. "It was all downhill
from the start," Mague recalled. "One of my good friends --
who had the largest Abyssinian cattery in the country at the
time -- told me that the longhairs would be recognized over
her dead body; and sadly, that's exactly what happened."
The
Name Game
The cat
fancy can be like a daunting religion, only worse, if you're
a sinner, especially if you're a sinner who shows a factory-imperfect
cat for which you hope to obtain official recognition so that
it can compete in championship classes alongside "purebred"
cats. Shunning is a common punishment for sinners in the cat
fancy. So is vilification. Furthermore, the official church
has a proprietary attitude about names. Thus, Abyssinian breeders
were not about to let Mague call her gorgeous Georges something
simple like longhaired Abyssinians.
No problem.
Just give 'em the old raspberry. Mague, in an inspired bit
of impishness, decided to call her new cat a Somali.
Somalia, in case you've forgotten your geography, forms the
eastern and southeastern borders of Ethiopia, which was called
Abyssinia until 1855.
Mague's
choice of a breed name was brilliantly cheeky, there being,
as we have seen, but one or two genes' worth of difference
between an Abyssinian and a Somali. That difference, like
the border between Ethiopia and Somalia, is a human fixation.
Nevertheless, some breeders, obsessed perhaps with the notion
of breed purity, insisted on crediting natural mutation for
the appearance of longhaired kittens in Abyssinian litters.
To this day one cat association declares, "The Somali originated
as a longhaired mutation of the Abyssinian." In reality, there
is a more parsimonious explanation.
Hitting
the Books
Between
1900 and 1905, within one decade after the Abyssinian had
been accepted as a breed in England, the stud book of the
National Cat Club there contained the names of only 12 Abyssinian
cats. Twelve's a nice round number if you're choosing up sides
for apostles, but it makes for an anemic breed population.
What the Aby lacked in numbers, though, it made up for in
mystery. Each of those 12 registered cats had at least one
parent of unknown origin. If you wanted to read longhaired
cats or cats with longhaired ancestors for some of
those unknowns, who could cast the first stone? Cat registries
could, however, stop you from showing the descendants of those
longhairs and from using such cats legitimately in your breeding
program. Longhaired Aby kittens, therefore, were traditionally
sold as pets with as little fanfare (and less acknowledgment)
as possible.
The turn
of the century wasn't the only time when shorthaired Abyssinian
stock was in short supply. The post-wars years in this century
were also occasions when longhaired cats (or cats with longhaired
ancestors) might have been used in Abyssinian breeding programs.
The list of registered Abyssinian stud cats in England in
1947-48 was four-cats long, and two of them hadn't sired litters
yet. As former Cat Fanciers' Association president Richard
Gebhardt has written, "Breeders looking to find mates for
their females at that time obviously had to look elsewhere
for eligible suitors." Breeders in this country were obliged
to do likewise.
Can
You Copy?
Not every
Abyssinian breeder had rigor mortis about the Somali's existence.
To be sure, longhaired Abyssinians had turned up once or twice
at cat shows before George turned up at Mague's door. According
to a proposal submitted to the Cat Fanciers' Association in
1978, when Somali breeders were petitioning for championship
status, one breeder "reported seeing a longhaired Abyssinian
being shown in the Household Pet classes of a Buffalo, NY,
cat show in 1955."
When Mague
placed an ad in a cat magazine hoping to locate other breeders
working with longhaired Abyssinians, she heard from a Canadian
cat fancier who had bought some longhairs from a cat show
judge and had been breeding them for four or five years. Subsequently
she heard from other Aby breeders with longhairs, and in 1972
she founded the Somali Cat Club of America (SCCA), which,
in just one year's time, was able to obtain registration and
championship status for Somalis in the now-defunct National
Cat Fanciers' Association. By 1980, all the other cat registries
in North America had followed suit, but not always gladly.
As the Winter 1994 SCCA Newsletter observed, "[Name of association
deleted] would like us to quit in disgust, let's surprise
them and fight 'fire with fire.'"
Or with
raspberries.
The
Building Code
The Somali
is a medium long, lithe and graceful cat with a rounded rib
cage, slightly arched back and semilong coat. The Somali's
head is a modified, somewhat rounded wedge with gentle contours
in the brow and cheek. The chin is full and rounded; the muzzle
is round with no hint of snippiness; and there is a slight
rise from the bridge of the nose to an ample forehead, which
is topped by large, moderately pointed ears that are broad
and cupped at the base.
Large,
brilliant, expressive, almond-shaped eyes -- accented by dark
skin around the lids that is, in turn, circled by a light
colored area -- complete the Somali face. Gold and green are
accepted eye colors in all registries, and at least one cat
association accepts hazel eyes as well.
The Somali's
semilong double coat is extremely soft and fine. A generous
ruff about the neck, and breeches on the hind legs are preferred.
The Somali's full, foxlike tail is thick at the base and slightly
tapered. Like its Abyssinian relatives, the Somali has a ticked
coat in which the individual hairs contain contrasting bands
of colors. In the red Somali, for example, red bands alternate
with bands of chocolate brown. Somalis also occur in ruddy,
blue, fawn and silver.
Personality
Profile
According
to its breed standard, the Somali shows "an alert, lively
interest in all surroundings,an even disposition and is easy
to handle." Those who own Somalis are wont to describe them
as "the epitome of everything that most people would ever
want in a companion animal" -- a "natural clown" whose "zest
for life" is evident at home or in the show ring.
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