A stray may have been a pedigree cat "in the out", but I have always
thought that as soon as you no longer can prove the kitty you found is
the pedigree cat in question, thru collar tag / tattoo mark / ID chip or
whatever, no matter how much of a pedigree he looks and/or behaves like,
a stray cat cannot be called a pedigree cat. Or, well, called yes, but
not shown in cat shows as one or sold as one. It doesn't have the
paperwork or known lineage. Which, of course, doesn't make it any less
of a wonderful specimen of the species tho...

Not necessarily, but usually if people have paid a fair sum
of money for a pedigreed cat, they aren't liekly to simply
abandon it. ("Get rid of", maybe - but not without some
compensation.)

Perhaps it is.  Certainly, judging by various discussions
we've had here, the average American cat tends to be larger
than those in the UK.  (You guys seem to consider ten pounds
large, whereas here that's just about average - many tip the
scales at fifteen, and only when they get closer to the
twenty mark do people remark upon their size!)

Having seen 3 'moggies' that were exported here from England ( a friend
immigrated here and didn't want to leave her cats behind), the British
Moggie looks more like  British Shorthair than Australian Moggies. They are
stockier, and have rounder, bigger heads and are just 'beefier' all over,
and hteir coats seem denser and less 'fluffy'. Her 3 British cats look quite
distinct from the two Australian moggies that adopted her later.

I can only assume that someone outside of Britain liked the look of Britsh
moggies as opposed to their own moggie type, and started breeding them so as
to accentuate the differences. Hundreds of generations later, the breed
"British Shorthair" became a distict breed in its own right, and only has a
passing simularity with the original stock from which it was bred from.

But still, her British moggies still are recognisably *British*, just not as
pronounced as the pure-bred ones.

Yowie