A show cat (Manx) being judged at a show

A show cat (also known as a purebred or pedigreed cat) is one that has been judged to be close to the physical ideal for its breed standard at a cat show. Not all pedigreed cats are show cats, many are just pets but the ones with the best conformation and personality are often shown in associations such as the CFA and TICA in the US, and the GCCF in the UK. Uncommonly, a prize-winning pedigreed show cat can be worth thousands of dollars but most are loved pets. In order to compare examples of breeds and improve stock, cat shows are held whgghghghthghghere judges evaluate the cats according to a breed standard. Pedigreed cats are often identified with microchip implants. CFA allbreed judge Barbara St. ... CFA allbreed judge Barbara St. ... Trinomial name Felis silvestris catus Schreber, 1775 The cat (also called domestic cat or house cat) is a small feline carnivorous mammal. ... A cat breed is an infrasubspecific rank for the classification of domestic cats. ... Typical cat show benching cage in the US. Cats wait here until called to the ring. ... The Cat Fanciers Association is the worlds largest registry of pedigreed cats. ... The International Cat Association More commonly known as TICA is the worlds second-largest cat registry in North America. ... The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) is the organization that registers pedigreed cats in the United Kingdom. ...

A common misconception is that all pedigreed cats are less healthy than random bred cats due to inbreeding. Not all pedigreed cats are excessively inbred, however, in the past, this was the case with some breeds, before the modern understanding of genetics was widely circulated. Currently, breeders take great care to select for the healthiest animals, which has greatly reduced the incidence of health issues. Many of the worst, like PKD in Persians and HCM in Maine Coons, have been nearly eliminated due to preventive screening, long term tracking and study by geneticists. Inbreeding is breeding between close relatives. ... Genetics (from the Greek genno γεννώ= give birth) is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. ... Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a progressive, genetic disorder of the kidneys. ... Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, is a disease of the myocardium (the muscle of the heart) in which a portion of the myocardium is hypertrophied (thickened) without any obvious cause. ...

Breeds have different origins, some are manmade or the result of mutation, while others are found in nature. Some breeds of cat have been created by taking a single tom cat or queen with an unusual physical characteristic that breeds true. The entire Cornish Rex breed can be traced back to a single parent animal with an unusual genetic mutation producing a curly coat. Both the Burmese and Tonkinese breeds can be traced back to a single cat, Wong Mau, which was brought from Burma in the 1930s. Breeders continually strive to eliminate negative characteristics that various cat breeds exhibit as the breeds are developed. There is not really any such thing as a 'purebred' cat since all registered breeds began as random bred cats. In this case, 'pedigreed' is a more accurate term. For alternative meanings see cat (disambiguation). ... A Cornish Rex is a breed of cat, with no hair except for down. ... This article is about mutation in biology, for other meanings see: mutation (disambiguation). ... Tonkinese are a medium-sized short-haired cat breed distinguished by points as with Siamese and Himalayans. ...

Cat breeders are continually competing to find the 'ideal' of the breed - the cats that come closest to fitting the breed standard. Because of this, the physical characteristics of a prize-winning show cat have gradually changed in some breeds. This genetic shifting is most obvious in the two oldest, most popular and most distinctive breeds of show cat - the Persian and the Siamese. However, some show cats are naturally occurring breeds that are perpetuated to keep the original look of a cat from a particular region. Examples are the Maine Coon and Turkish Van. The Persian is one of the oldest breeds of cat. ... The Siamese is one of the first distinctly recognised breeds of Oriental cat. ... The Maine Coon is one of the largest breeds of domestic cat. ... The Turkish Van is a rare, naturally occurring breed of cat originally found in the Lake Van region of southeastern Turkey. ...

See also

• List of cat breeds
• cat breed