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Norwegian
Woods
On the
physical plane the Norwegian forest cat, Wegie for
short, is a naturally occurring breed whose domain comprises
the farms and woodland of central Norway, which territory
lies roughly between the 59th and 62nd degrees north latitude.
That's only a snowball's throw from the Arctic Circle, which
begins at 66.5 degrees north latitude. (The only one of the
United States that lies above the 59th parallel is Alaska.)
The rough
winters of Norway nurtured the forest cat's vitality, resourcefulness
and sensible, semi-long, water-repellent coat. In order to
master his trying domain the Wegie was also obliged to develop
a diehard, constitutional resilience to the harsh, wet climate
that rewards the survivors of one winter by allowing them
the opportunity to survive another.
And
Other Cool Lynx
Some observers
theorize that forest cats are the products of fraternization
between shorthaired cats brought to Norway from England by
the Vikings 1,000 years ago and longhaired cats imported by
the Crusaders in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. Others
challenge the notion that Crusaders returned from their missionary
endeavors with any cats. Still others assert that Norwegian
Vikings, who reigned havoc on the coasts of Europe and beyond
from the 8th to the 10th centuries, kept forest cats as mousers
and pets. Some of these cats were introduced to the lands
toured by the Vikings, thus helping to an extent to restore
the balance of trade with those lands. The Vikings' talent
for disseminating cats is credited by some for the presence
of semiferal longhair cats in places such as Normandy and
the North Atlantic coastal regions of the United States.
Hindsight
being no less subject to flights of fancy than is foresight,
some people have constructed links between the Norwegian forest
cat and the Norwegian lynx. "The most apparent of these,"
says one lynxologist, are similarities in size, ruffs and
ear tufts. "Moreover they both like water, and the stories
of swimming forest cats who catch their own fish in lakes
and rivers are innumerable. The forest cat evidently utilizes
the same methods as the Norwegian lynx when it goes fishing."
Finally,
some Wegie advocates put their own spin on the history of
feline domestication: "We do not know ... when it [the Wegie]
first approached people and joined the ancient tribes in their
wanderings."
Whatever
the forest cat's origin the earliest references to cats that
resemble today's Wegies are found in Norwegian folk tales
that were gathered and recorded between 1837 and 1852. Another
reference to the forest cat occurs in Norwegian author Gabriel
Scott's Sølvfaks, a popular children's book
published in 1912. The central character in Sølvfaks
(silver fox) is a forest cat of the same name.
Truls
Rules
For all
but the last 20 years or so the forest cat has been a prophet
without pulpit -- or papers -- in Norway. The Wegie was left
to his considerable devices outdoors while those two-legged
Norwegians who succumbed to the spell of the show ring sought
the indoor company of Persians, Siamese and other members
of the pedigreed fraternity. There had been a few desultory
attempts to promote forest cats -- a red-and-white Norwegian
male was shown in Norway in 1930, and a forest-cat club was
started in 1938 -- but World War II plowed these tender shoots
under and kept the breed from blossoming for several decades.
To make
a worsening situation worse yet, continued postwar breeding
between forest cats and shorthair hauskatts, the equivalent
of our free-ranging domestic felines, almost stopped the Wegie's
progress cold. Short hair being dominant over long, breedings
between shorthair and longhair cats will produce only shorthair
kittens, unless the shorthair parent is carrying the recessive
gene for long hair.
Fortunately
in the early 1970s Carl-Fredrik Nordane, then president of
the Norwegian Cat Association, began lobbying on the Wegie's
behalf. He organized a meeting at which the initial forest
cat breeding program was designed, and he helped to charter
the Norskskogkattering, a forest-cat breed club that
held its first meeting in February 1975. Two and a half years
later Nordane traveled to Paris to plead the Wegies' case
before the general assembly of the Fédération
Internationale Féline (FIFe), a cat registry that governs
shows and related matters in Europe and other parts of the
world. Norway's quarantine laws precluded bringing any Wegies
in living color to Paris, but on November 25, 1977, Nordane
showed the FIFe assembly slides of two forest cats with certifiably
winning names: Truls and Pippi Skogpus. Truls, a brown-tabby-and-white
male, has been called "a glorious specimen ... the first prototype
of the Norwegian Forest Cat breed."
The FIFe
board of directors must have agreed. They voted to admit Wegies
to the ranks of pedigreed cats eligible to compete for the
greater honor and glory of their owners at cat shows. When
Nordane returned in triumph to Oslo the following night, flags
were flying, music was blaring and 40 cars' worth of Norwegian
Cat Fancy Council members were conducting a joyous, horn-honking
line dance.
Every
Figure Tells a Story
Two years
to the month after its November 1977 anointment by FIFe, the
Norwegian forest cat arrived in the United States. Sixteen
months later (March 29, 1981) the first Norwegian litter born
in this country was delivered. By 1984 the forest cat was
accepted for championship competition by the first of several
North American cat-registering associations. Today it is eligible
to compete in the shows of all cat registries here.
During
the six years following the birth of the first Norwegian forest
cats in this country, 350 members of the breed were registered
with various cat associations. That works out to fewer than
60 new registrations per year. Such are the numbers of what
the cat fancy calls minority breeds. There were, according
to the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA), only seven breeds
out of the 31 it recognized in 1987 that had fewer than 100
new registrations that year. Since then the forest cat population
has grown. In 1997, four years after CFA had recognized Wegies,
it enrolled 508 new forest cats. This number, which represented
an increase of 9 percent over the preceding year, came at
a time when the registrations of many pedigreed breeds --
and of pedigreed cats as a tribe -- were declining significantly.
(The Wegie stood 17th among the 36 breeds recognized by CFA
last year.)
The
Bottom Lines
Since
it was given the keys to the pedigree-cat club's lounge two
decades ago in Europe, the Skogkatt, as the Wegie is
known in the land of its birth, has traveled from footnote
to spotlight. Referred to as a "living national cultural monument"
by many of its fans -- and declared "the hottest breed in
America's cat fancy" by a Chicago Tribune writer five
years ago -- the Norwegian forest cat is a tactile pleasure
as well as a visual and temperamental delight.
According
to Norse folklore there was once a forest cat so heavy that
the fearsome Thor -- the mighty god of thunder, the Bad, Bad
Leroy Brown of all the gods -- could not lift the prodigious
feline. Whether or not Thor could lift a Norwegian forest
cat, it's safe to say he couldn't resist petting one.
Built
for Success
A person
would expect that a cat reputed to have helped pull the goddess
Freya's chariot would be a splendid creation, and the Norwegian
forest cat does not disappoint. Known as the Wegie
to his American friends -- and as the Skogkatt in his
native land -- the Norwegian forest cat is a moderately long,
heavy-boned creature that carries a double coat: a long, smooth
outer garment arrayed with oily guard hairs; and a dense,
cottony undercoat. This is a coat obviously meant to protect
the cat inside it from the great outdoors. It is also a coat
that warrants twice weekly brushing. Baths, which give the
Wegie an opportunity to demonstrate its water-resistant coat
-- are determined by the amount of oil that coat exudes.
Age, climate
and color combine to influence coat development and texture
in the Norwegian. "It takes about two years for the coat to
come in completely on colors other than tabbies," says one
cat association. Furthermore, "solid colors, tortoiseshells
and bicolors have a smoother, softer coat than tabbies"; and
during hot weather, "the tail, ear and toe tufts" are the
only factors that "distinguish the cat as a longhair."
Large,
expressive, almond-shaped eyes -- set at a slight angle, with
the outer corner somewhat higher than the inner one -- gladden
the Norwegian forest cat's triangular head. The Norwegian's
nose is "medium straight" or "medium to long" or "medium-long,"
depending on the cat association to which one pledges allegiance.
In all cases the nose should be straight, but females "may
exhibit a minimal curve."
The forest
cat has medium to large ears, slightly rounded at the tip,
and set as much on the side of the head as on the top. The
ears are upright, alert and arched forward. Ear furnishings
are heavy, and lynx tips, though "desirable," do not constitute
a fault by their absence.
Personality
Profile
Though
Norwegian forest cats take time to mature -- not reaching
fullest flower until they are five -- they waste no time playing
a tune on their owners' heartstrings. "Their purr boxes are
constantly working," says one breeder, "and they continuously
exhibit their love of people. If you're talking on the phone,
they're walking across the receiver; if you're working at
your desk, they're lying across your papers."
Without
a doubt, say Norwegian breeders, their cats are tied to people
more than any other cat imaginable. "It's almost like they
determine who in the household they want to be attached to
for the rest of their lives, and if a Norwegian decides that
person is you, you better like cats because he'll be with
you every minute."
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