All Cat Breeds

Do you want a cat that has a distinctive and unusual looking appearance? If so, you may want to consider the American Wirehair. This breed has hair that looks like colored steel wool, although it doesn’t feel quite so coarse to the touch.

The American Wirehair started with a litter of kittens born in a farmer’s barn. When he noticed one of the kittens had an unusual coat, he consulted a cat fancier, who decided to try to breed cats with the wirehair trait. Unfortunately, this trait was not truly dominant, so there was quite a lot of inbreeding, and any cat who showed even the slightest tendency to be a wirehair was used for breeding. Concern that the breed would become susceptible to hereditary diseases and weaknesses led the people working with the American Wirehair to cross it with the American Shorthair, one of the other cat breeds to be developed in America.

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If you aren’t familiar with pedigreed cats, you may be under the impression that the American Shorthair is a fancy name for an alley cat. However, the American Shorthair, which was called the Domestic Shorthair until the nineteen sixties, is a pedigreed cat that meets a specific standard.

These cats, which are classified as a part of the Championship Class by the Cat Fancier’s Association, are on the large side, weighing in at eight to fifteen pounds. The Shorthair has a wide face with prominent cheeks and a powerful well muscled body. His tail is slightly thicker at the base than at the tip and is shorter than his body. His eyes are big and have an alert expression.

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