The British,
Shorthair, cat. Descended from cats introduced into Britain
during Roman times the breed had centuries of "living rough"
alongside man rather than with him, which produced a line of
strong, self-sufficient, hardy cats.
Nineteenth
century author and artist, Harrison Weir, so admired these
cats’ natural sturdiness and intelligence that he started
selectively breeding the most outstanding specimens he could
find and developed them into a breed.
In 1871 the
first organized cat show took place in the Crystal Palace and
Best in Show was awarded to a 14 year old female blue tabby
British Shorthair, owned by Mr. Weir.
The British
Shorthair is a sturdy, compact looking cat. It has a massive
round head and a deep-chested, cobby body with a unique coat
for its breed-short, dense, plush and "crisp", not soft to the
touch.
One of its
distinctions is in the wide range of beautiful coat colours
that have been bred from this wonderful cat anything from
solids colours to tabby, spotted , tortoiseshell, Bi-colours,
Tri-colours, tipped and Golden Tipped and newer colours such
as lilac, chocolate, Cinnamon and Fawn, with the introduction
of the Colourpointed Persian, we then saw the beautiful
colourpointed series, arrive, although the Persian is no longer
used in the self, tabby and colourpointed, British it can still
be used with in the Golden tipped because of the small gene
pool.
Of all
these, colours, blue has remained the favourite throughout the
years.
A British
Shorthair is a delight to own, being intelligent, affectionate
and Non temperamental. They have a strong character but are can
be rather reserved by nature. They demand less attention than
other breeds, although they love all attention, they are not at
all pushy and are the cat to cope with busy lifestyles.
They can
and will live happily as a singular car or as one of many and
have no problems adapting to other breeds that are introduced
to them.
The average
life span for a British cat is 15 years and their litters vary
from 2 to some times as many as nine. But in most cases a
litter of 4 is a good litter.
