The Selkirk Rex is one of the newer rex breeds and was granted recognition status by the GCCF in June 2004. You may have seen these curly cats on exhibition at shows, however they can now be entered in merit classes and will therefore become more visible in coming months.
 

The Selkirk Rex gene is a natural mutation. The curly coated Selkirk Rex is a medium to large cat with heavy boning, rectangular semi cobby body resembling a modified British Shorthair.
They come in both shorthair and semi longhair coat lengths with all hair and eye colour possibilities {eye colour should match coat colour}.
So where or how did the Selkirk Rex come about?

Lets go back to the Selkirk Rex humble beginnings in 1987 and cross the Atlantic to Montana, USA, where a Persian breeder named Jeri Newman discovered the first Selkirk Rex in the nick of time. A friend, who ran a rescue shelter called to tell Jeri she’d taken in a cat with an unusual coat, Jeri had an interest in genetics so was asked would she like to see her before she was ‘signed over to the shelter’ and spayed. This kitten was the only one in a litter of six kittens displaying this unusual curly coat and whiskers.

The following year Jeri mated the kitten called Miss DePesto of NoFace {Pest} to her black Persian Ch Photo Finish of Deekay and awaited the offspring. The six kittens   arrived on 4 July 1988, and there were definitely three curly kittens.
This meant the gene was a dominant for Pest to produce curly kittens when only one parent was curly. Jeri wanted to see if this was a complete dominant gene or a stray wirehair ‘stud’ running around in Sheridan. The only ‘known’ dominant gene at the time was an incomplete dominant, The American Wirehair.
The following year the black and white curly male from Pest’s litter, NoFace Oscar Kowalski (Oscar) was bred back to his mother and on 15 July 1989, Pest had three curlycoated homozygous kittens and one straight coated kitten, it was found that the pairing had produced homozygous kittens proving this was a very exciting new ‘complete dominant’ gene.
A complete dominant gene is able to produce three types of SelkirkRex:

Homozygous, have two copies of the curly gene, this cat only produces all curly kittens when mated to a straight hair, this also alters their appearance.
Heterozygous, have one visual copy of the curly gene and one recessive copy of the straight gene, these cats produce both curly and straight coated kittens, they also are the right ‘type’ to be shown in competition at this time.
Variants, these kittens do not have a copy of the curly gene, the gene does not ‘carry’, they have inherited two copies of the straight recessive gene from their parents. Variants can be used in the breeding programs in place of one of the chosen outcross breeds. The Variants are not shown.

Pest herself was a heterozygous; the three types of Selkirk Rex are considered a natural part of the breed.
As Pest was only bred five times our beginning gene pool was extremely limited. Only 15 of Pest’s offspring were registered with CFA.
Jeri felt that Pest’s look was not pleasing, she decided on a more rounded, well-balanced look.
Oscar was the most widely used Selkirk Rex stud in the breeding program initially as his type was more desirable and closer to Jeri’s Standard of Points than his mother.

The outcross breeds were chosen to include British Shorthairs, Persians and Exotics. American Shorthairs were also used up until 31 December 1997, with CFA. TICA allowed their use for longer.
American Shorthairs are accepted in the pedigrees of imports.
January 1990 saw the first Selkirk Rex cats shown with CFA in Salt Lake City, Utah. These two cats where NoFace Oscar Kowalski and his son NoFace Snowman. In February 1992, CFA accepted the Selkirk Rex for registration, in the same year the breed was put into the Shorthair Class as a miscellaneous breed.

The Selkirk Rex has been improved over the years, their type has moved closer to the curly desired Standard of Points. The homozygous, who’s type was considered undesirable to show is also slowly moving closer to the standard with the hope to eventually have homozygous that are able to be shown in competition against their more showable partners, the heterozygous.
 

The first three Selkirk Rex were imported into the UK from Europe in February 2002, and since then there have been various other imports from the USA and Europe