American Wirehair Cat

The American Wirehair cat breed is another one of the new cat breeds that developed in the US toward the end of the twentieth century, as a result of spontaneous genetic mutations. In this case, the mutated gene was for the characteristic wiry coat.

American Wirehair Behavior/Personality

Source: "The American Wirehair: Bad Hair Day? Or...Great Wirehair!"by Kitty Dieterich.

American Wirehairs are generally considered to be friendly, companionable cats. In fact, despite their status as a pure breed of cats, American Wirehairs are generally better as pets than as show cats, since so few of the cats possess the ideal characteristics.

American Wirehair Breed Standard/Physical Description

Here are some facts on the American Wirehair breed based on the Cat Fanciers Association's breed standard.

• Head: round
• Muzzle: well-developed
• Ears: medium-sized
• Eyes: big and round
• Body: medium-sized or large
• Legs: medium-long, muscular
• Paws: rounded, with five toes on front paws and four toes on the back paws
• Tail: tapered
• Coat: medium-long and wiry-looking

American Wirehair History

Source: "The American Wirehair: Bad Hair Day? Or...Great Wirehair!"by Kitty Dieterich.

The first American Wirehair, named Council Rock Farm Adam, was found in an upstate New York barn in 1966 as a kitten. The farm's owner, together with a neighbor, bred the cat with his sister, and after successive close-line breedings the wire-haired breed was established. Fortunately, the original breeders did recognize the need for some out-breeding. They chose the American Shorthair as the breed to use for out-breeding, since it most closely resembled the Wirehair. As a result, Wirehairs today are largely descended from Shorthairs.

The gene that causes the wired coat is an "incomplete dominant." This means that even if two Wirehairs are bred together, some of the resulting kittens may not have the wired fur. In the early days, Wirehair-descended cats were bred even if they did not have the characteristic fur type, in order to keep the breed going and to cut down on inbreeding. Today, now that the breed is more firmly established, breeders are selectively breed only the wiry coats. However, even the not-so-wiry coats are still valued since a cat with this coat still has the wiry gene and can be bred with another wiry-coated cat to perpetuate the breed.

In short, the American Wirehair breed is still establishing itself genetically, and breeders should be aware that many if not most cats born in a litter will not be able to compete as show cats.

American Shorthair Cat

The American Shorthair cat breed, once simply called the Domestic Shorthair, is thought to represent the cats that lived in North America from colonial times through the late nineteenth century, when foreign cats first came to North American shores in large numbers.

American Shorthair Behavior/Personality

Source: Cat Fanciers Association's Breed Profile

Usually known as gentle, playful, and companionable, American Shorthairs are said to be good with children and even dogs.

American Shorthair Breed Standard/Physical Description

Here are some facts on the American Shorthair breed based on the Cat Fanciers Association's breed standard.

• Head: large, slightly oblong
• Muzzle: square
• Ears: medium-sized
• Eyes: big, wide, with upper eyelids shaped like almond halves and lower eyelids more fully rounded
• Body: muscular and solid-looking
• Legs: medium-long and muscular
• Paws: firm, rounded, with five toes on the front paws and four toes on the rear paws
• Tail: medium-long and tapered
• Coat: short and thick

American Shorthair History

Source: Cat Fanciers Association's Breed Standard

By some accounts, the American Shorthair came to North America with the earliest English settlers. Some even wonder whether their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, as history records the ship having several rat-hunting cats. Over the centuries, North Americans kept cats to help them fight rats and other pests, but also increasingly as pets. Very often, these cats were similar to American Shorthairs.

By the early twentieth century, more and more cats were being brought to North America from abroad, particularly Longhair and Siamese cats, and these cats promptly interbred with native cats. Many North American cat fanciers wished to preserve the native breed of cat, and so they began a selective breeding program. Consequently, the American Shorthair breed was one of the first five breeds registered by the new Cat Fanciers' Association in 1906-as the "Domestic Shorthair." The breed's name was officially changed to "American Shorthair" in 1966. Today, the American Shorthair ranks among the most popular breed among cat fanciers.

American Keuda Cat

American Keuda Cat Breed Introduction

While a lot of care and thought goes into developing any cat breed, the American Keuda breed is perhaps unique for having resulted from a formal study of cat traits. The breed should perhaps more properly be called the American Keuda type rather than breed, since it is still undergoing selective breeding.

American Keuda Behavior/Personality

Source: Wikipedia (March 2006)

American Keuda cats have been bred to be the ideal barn cat, athletic and hard-working.

American Keuda Breed Standard/Physical Description

Here are some facts on the American Keuda breed based on the American Keuda Cat Association's breed standard.

• Head: medium-sized
• Muzzle: "not short; refined"
• Ears: medium-large in a slightly rounded triangle shape
• Eyes: medium-sized and almond-shaped
• Body: medium-sized
• Paws: oval-shaped, with five toes on front paws and four toes on back paws
• Tail: slightly tapered
• Coat: any pattern or color

American Keuda History

Source: Wikipedia

The American Keuda's history is still very much in development, as the breed has not been finalized. More properly speaking, the breed is not a true cat breed but rather a "type," on its way to becoming a breed as breeders refine the animals' features through selective breeding.

The breed began in a study from the 1980s, the "Kitten Evaluation Under Direct Assessment." The KEUDA was attempting to determine the best characteristics for a barn cat. The barn cats studied were taken from New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. The animals were bred together in the course of the study.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether Keudas have any Egyptian Mau ancestry, and if so, how much. The controversy arises because of the physical similarities between the two breeds. Yet Keudas come in a much broader variety of physical appearances. Individual Keudas come in a much wider variety of coat colors and patterns than Maus; they often more closely resemble Siamese, Havana Brown, or other cat breeds.