#But of the specific breeds they test for her highest are Maine Coon (15%) and american shorthair (13%) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

redafi · 2 years ago

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OH THIS IS SOMETHING I ACTUALLY KNOW A BIT ABOUT

Basically, “purebred” cats are really more of a recent thing. Unlike dogs, they didn’t need to be bred for specific purposes to do their jobs. They are born with the natural instinct to hunt mice. (My cat apparently excluded.) (well not excluded, she tries, shes just really bad at it)

Source? Well for christmas I managed to get a DNA testing kit for my cat (from my kinda-mostly-estranged paternal grandfather and step-grandmother, who I recently realized are probably looking at the wishlists sent out for the “young’uns” in my family and just buying the most expensive thing on it.)

And hurray, they gave me a BUNCH of information on the history of cat breeds. And now I know that I should schedule a vet appointment for Blair to specifically check out her teeffers. Because apparently she has bad breath (I don’t know if id be able to tell) and medium risk of periodontal disease.

Point? Well, selective breeding for cats has only been going on for about 200 years or so now (started in the 19th century). And this makes it so that it’s impossible to really define individual breeds—they aren’t as clearly laid out as dogs, with their thousands of years of selective breeding.

As the “history of cat domestication and breeding” section in my beloved beautiful-and-elegant-little-turd’s genetic report says: “The extremely short timeline of human-driven selective cat breeding has yet to overcome the much longer history of cats reproducing freely. Therefore, modern-day cats rarely have ancestors of a defined breed, and the feline genetic code has remained exceptionally diverse even within established pedigree breeds.” (This is from Basepaws. Expensive, but even just the first report—because they send you more as more tests process (or i assume thats why theres a different timeline)—has 68 pages. Granted, some of that is general information, not all of it is about my cat. But regardless whooPEE thats a lot of info and i think that i certainly got my… well, my rather estranged californian set of paternal grandparents… money’s worth from it.)

#Cat #cats #basepaws #Basepaws genetic reports #Basepaws genetic testing #I actually found out that my cat has quite a bit of russian in her #She’s mostly from the western breed group and of that mostly “broadly western”#Which i assume is code for “we don’t have a specific breed but cats from these areas all have X trait and she does too” or something #But of the specific breeds they test for her highest are Maine Coon (15%) and american shorthair (13%)#Despite her rather small size—7lbs last time she was weighed—the maine coon was in no way a surprise #Not with her long luxurious fur #Ragdoll wasnt a surprise either once i learned why they’re called ragdolls—they go limp when held—because she certainly has THAT trait #(Ragdoll was the next highest at 6%)#What was a surprise was the lack of norwegian forest cat and the interesting heritage linked to the “egyptian mau”#Norwegian forest cat was my second guess for her possible heritage #The egyptian mau does not seem to share much w blair at first glance but they do an average weight closer to hers

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