OK i'm in a different country entirely, so my experience is completely
different, but i thought i'd just add my bit because i've been
wondering about persian cats a lot in the last few months .. below

only have something to say about these two points below, so have
snipped everything else:

[snip the rest ]

[ actually i've just read through my post below again, and it's a
pretty pointless ramble .. so feel free to skip ]

I have a persian mix .. i *think*.  thats what everyone tells me
(amongst other things), but i'm still not sure, and anyway i don't
care. it's just that everybody thinks she's a persian, a ragdoll (!
come on, i really don't think so), a british longhair (??), wahtever!
it started bothering me and i started looking up Persian FAQs and web
sites.

Here's the thing: I adopted her from a colleague of mine who had taken
her in from the streets.  Background - I'm planning to move into my
own place soon (have posted about this) and I had always ALWAYS wanted
a cat.  I had started  to prepare for one by reading a couple of books
about them - I don't know why but when i started it never occurred to
me to check the internet for research.  My plan was to get prepared
and learn about them, and eventually get one when i moved in six
months from then (about three months from now).  However, my colleague
saw my catbooks at work and suggested I take one of her fosterees (she
has several- we have a culling situation going on here).  At the time,
my thought was "yay, free cat" , THEN she told me it was a Persian.
And my followup thought was - yick!  WHy? Because my ONLY perception
of Persians were that weird owl faces you see in all those cat guide
books! In my mind Persians were those weird overly hairy owlfaces (and
WHY are they combed into large clumps of hair?), OR the ones that look
like grumpy old chinese men (a bit like pekinese dogs too, no?). If I
was going to buy a cat (and I hadn't decided then, it was still an
option), that was the one cat i would not buy.  But still, hey it was
a free cat (OK at this time, I only knew about the SPCA re: adoption,
which had an adoption fee, and I also felt sure I would fail the pet
test I assumed they would give me, which is why in the first place I
had bought cat books and was learning more about them), and better
yet, it was from someone I knew, so I felt that she would be able to
help me with advice should i need it, and since she had taken it in,
she knew all about the cat's habits already , etc.

She gave me pics but the pics were always of the cat running away, so
all you really saw was a slightly fuzzy grumpy looking cat, and not a
single full body shot at all.  This actually I found endearing,
because i felt the cat was grumpy and didn't photograph well -
basically exactly like me. We would get along great!  So i decided to
take her! I figured - weird persian cat, so what,  I guess I can live
with that.  The books said you have to be committed to grooming a
persian at least 15 mins a day, I would do it!  And you knwo what!
Even if it's a weird owly-face, it would be beautiful because it was a
living creature and I would take care of it! But when I actually saw
her on the day of pickup, she was COMPLETELY LOVELY! She was
beautiful, not flat faced at all, small, only slightly fluffy, very
pretty. Now I don't know if she's anything like "doll-faced" but she
looks like a normal cat, just a but fluffier (not short haired). AND
she has now developed what i guess would be a persian tail - that big
duster tail.

NOW here is the other thing.  So I've had her three months and we're
getting along famously, everything's good, etc.  But now I'm curious
because i have NEVER EVER SEEN a flat-faced persian in real life here,
ever!  It's become so I really REALLY want to find one (in real life
that is). It was starting to bother me because the pics I saw of
persians never tallied with my own cat, yet everyone said she was a
persian.  At first I went around thinking: what the hell, why is
everyone calling her a persian when she looks nothing like one - am i
the only one who reads books? Even at the vet, when I first brought
her in, the vet nurse classified her as a persian.  Then, i saw
persians for sale in shops - they are the cutest little "doll-faced"
babies ever! I've now seen persians belonging to other SIngaporeans
and on local adoption sites, not a single "pansy" face! Where are
these mythical pansy persians! :)  We were more or less convinced she
was a mutated Persian, therefore not a true award-winning persian - a
defective persian! But that meant also that all Persians in Singapore
are not true breeds (which is just fine with me). THEN, I started
looking up persian sites, and although you do see the weird owlies,
there are a fair number of non-owlies too - my cat looks almost
exactly like the cat "COle" on this page

http://www.persian-cats.com/gallery.cgi?breed=tabby&start=50

and Bella on this page:
http://www.persian-cats.com/gallery.cgi?breed=tabby&start=20

Also, she does have a bunch of the same traits as the tabby persian -
she squeaks and chirps a lot, she doesn't meow. She's quite outgoing
and friendly. So now we were back to her being a "legitimate" Persian!
(until my friend started insisting she was a ragdoll .. LOL)

THEN i found out about this tradditional persian versus show cat
persian dicotomy.  The thing is though, even in pet shops here, for
cats that you buy, the Persian cats look real pretty, if you had to
classify them as dollfaced or pansy faced, they would have to be
dollfaced. I don't know what the "breeders" persians here look like
(and don't want to), but i really doubt they would look *that*
different.  So I guess what I'm saying is, I *think* persians HERE are
probably mostly (so far that i know) "traditional" persian types
rather than owlfaces. And since our persians are imported, is it
possible that there are more traditional persian cats than people
think?  Not only that, I personally, at the point when I considered
buying a cat, specifically would not have bought a persian based on my
understanding that persian cats were owl-faced. So is it possible that
not as many people like that flat owly look as we think?

Of course I have nEVER been to a singapore cat fancy club (? there's
some official name for it) gathering, or whatever. It could very well
be that there's a whole other level of persian cats that i'm missing
out on (actually quite likely, i'm not THAT plugged into the fancy cat
scene). But the pet shop scene, and the GENERAL persian cat scene,
appears to be that they're traditional persian cats.

that's it..

That could very well be, but I bet the vast majority of the common, cat-
buying public don't know there IS a doll-face Persian. You don't see
them any more, really. I know I didn't know they existed until recently,
and I'm a huge cat lover.
Considering my local pet store and how many purebreds they sell, I'd
wager that most people who buy purebreds have no idea what the standard
even is - they just know that when they see Persians they have flat
faces. To them, that is what a Persian is. They buy on impulse, not
because they researched the cat and really wanted one. If they'd done
research, they wouldn't be buying them from a pet store that charges
more than a BYB. *g*
My local pet store, which I stop in about once a month, always has
Persian kittens. They sell well, apparently. For $800 each.

IME, most people who buy Persians either do so on impulse or for a
status symbol. They don't go around to breeders and ask about the
different types.

I did mostly mean commercial, for profit, breeders. Such as my local pet
store and the BYBs in the newspapers.
I have no idea how standards get set, as I prefer moggies to purebreds.
I prefer companions to a pet that compliments my furniture. hehe

Honestly, though, why set the standard to a new type if that new type  
were not more popular? I can't fathom it, but there's a reason for
everything...

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~kaeli~
Jesus saves, Allah protects, and Cthulhu
thinks you'd make a nice sandwich.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace
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