Thanks for stopping by! Get The Way of Cats, delivered, by asking for my RSS feed. Get my free cat advice newsletter by signing up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)We don’t have to get a purebred cat to know what we’re getting.
One of the attractions of a purebred from an ethical breeder is reasonable expectation of the look and personality that comes with the breed. How can this knowledge help the seeker in the shelters? It comes from knowing some basic breed characteristics, and being able to recognize them in a prospective cat or kitten.
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The long, lean, Oriental types are aerialists. Even when grown, they are going to be on top of the bookcases, ricocheting off the walls, and climbing the Christmas tree. Those limber paws are going to be everywhere; opening cabinets, flipping switches, putting artistic touches on the dried flower arrangements. They are going to need room to expend all that energy, and plenty of toys to safely do it with.
These types of cats tend to be what I call Alphas. Alpha cats are not based on domination and leadership, as dogs are. It’s how they regard the environment around them, which includes living beings like humans and cats. They want to manipulate their environment, and they have a paws-on approach. When they crowd you at the can opener, it’s not just to get at the food. It’s to figure out How It Works, so they can do it themselves.
Persians are the other extreme. They tend to put the capital P in passive. As adults they find different places to hang, and hang there. They will observe, but not interfere. They have a sweet tendency to leave things alone, and are not as easy as they might seem; the sensible owner of a Gamma cat needs to be extra alert to the little signals these quiet cats send about what they want and need. We can always tell a Gamma kitten. When put in the box, they sit there, gathering geographical information. They are very sensitive to environmental cues; moved furniture and new routines will stress them until they have worked the new patterns out for themselves.
We can also test a prospective kitten with the box test. If we place an Alpha kitten in a large, empty, cardboard box box, they will immediately jump out. The Gamma will sit and look around, getting their bearings.
There’s an in-between pattern between the extremes. If we put the kitten in the box and they explore it, they are likely to be a Beta. Betas are wonderfully communicative, because they don’t manipulate the environment directly, like Alphas, nor do they see what might go by, like Gammas. Betas rely upon us to manipulate their environment to their liking. So they will talk, and ask us to follow them, and show us what needs to be fixed or filled.
So we look at both their breed traits and the personality they are already displaying. Are we looking for playful? Do we want a lot of personality? A love bug? Any cat can have these traits. How the cat expresses them will vary by body type and breed.
It’s important for a cat to have a home. It’s even more important for the cat to keep that home. So give some thought about what kind of cat would suit our home best. Take my cat selector quiz.
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Observing a prospective kitten or cat and trying to guess the breeds they came from tell us a lot about the cat. Knowing what we want, knowing what we are getting, and being flexible enough to to see the right signs will get us the right cat.
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