Cat Fact Files

It is a good idea to use purpose-made cat bowls that can be identified by the cat, and kept clean and use. It is important that bowls are weighted to prevent them from travelling around the floor when the cat is feeding. Although side plates can be used to offer food to a cat, it is best to use a heavy, but shallow, porcelain or china bowl.

Some active cats have a powerful appetite that develops from their need to fuel their exercise. Looking for more food is acceptable in this instance-it can be useful to leave such a cat wanting more, to enable food to be used for interaction and hunting game’s However, it is not advisable to over feed a house-bound cat, as an adult cat can quickly become overweight and this can lead to health problems.

Bowls that are cleaned out on a daily basis will not become encrusted with traces of uneaten food. A daily warm water rinse, plus a weekly wash with soap, is all that should be required. Any residue from strong-smelling detergents can cause a cat to decline it’s food, so these should be avoided.

This coal-coloured breed originated in a 1950s mating between a sable Burmese and a black American short-haired cat. This imaginative cross produced an Oriental-looking, miniature panther-like cat. It has deep copper-coloured eyes which sometimes fade or turn slightly green as the cat gets older. The Bombay is often put into the asian group and, althought established as a breed in 1976, is still not widely recognized. It’s beautiful sleek black coat is very easy to maintain, needing only a quick rubdown with a chamois leather in order to maintain the sheen.

This breed was developed by an American geneticist who cross-mated a male domestic cat with a female Asian leopared cat. The resulting breed, one of the most striking spotted-patterned of all cats with a destinctively thick coat, is said to have the look of a wild cat with the temperament of a domesticated one. Bengals are known to enjoy playing with water-an indication of their natural jungle cat ancestry.

This is an extremely ancient French short-haired breed. It tends to be very laidback in temperament and, while not aggressive, is a good hunter. It was developed by 14th-century Carthusian monks and should not be confused with the more round-faced British Blue cat. Visually difficult to distinguish from its British look-alike, the Chartreux has a marginally lighter coat. Legend suggest that Crusaders returned from the Holy Land with these cats, and monks are said to have controiled access to the breed by releasing only neutered individuals.

Most cats loathe water and react to it with panic and distress. However, there is one cat, the Turkish Van, that is fast becoming fame for its swimming talents. Equipped with a fine, dense coat and neck ruffle that thickens even more in the winter months, this breed will happily plung into water. There are Turkish Van individuals that do not enjoy water and this against-type behaviour could be due to the fact that several generations back even these cats would rarely be exposed to a lakeside environment like that of Lake Van, where the breed originated.

It has been debated over whether this ancient breed, which can be traced back over more than a thousand years, is the forerunner of all long-haired cat breeds, including Persians and Angoras. This is a rough-and-readybreed, genetically traceable to modern-day tabby cats that live around St Petersburg, and has an extremely thick coat to help it survive the extremely thick coat top help it survive the extremes of a Siberian climate. Relatively scarce outside its Russian homeland, this breed is distinctively tabby, with its colouring bias perhaps due to wild or feral matings.

This wolly-looking, short-haired cat first appeared in the 1950s when a British farm cat produced one curly-haired male kitten in her litter. It was consequently bred back with her. Since then, this breed has been crossed with Burmese and British Shorthair. Its short coat is incredibly soft to the touch, resembling velvet, and is said to benefit from an occasional ‘bran bath’. It is not suited to cold and wet conditions, which means this breed is a good candidate for keeping as an indoor house cat. There are a number of colour types including white, cream, silver, smoke, chocolate and tortoiseshell.

The product of a different gene mutation, this curiy-coated cat appeared about ten years after its Cornish cousin. It is said to have resuited from a cross between a curled-coated feral male and a stray British straight-haired female. The gene for a curly coat is recessive and inbreeding became necessary in order to continue the breed. The slightly ‘clownish’ look of this cat is matched by its clumsy and amusing outlook on life. A new American breed, known as the poodle, has been developed from crossmatings between Devon Rex and Scottish Fold cats. This combines the curly coat with the folded ears, to produce a rather comical-looking cat.