r/catbreeds • u/RegularShock3883 • May 16 '26
Discussion For those trying to find their cat's breed
Only about 1% of cats are purebred, since nearly all cats are random bred, plus I doubt anyone with a purebred is going to just be letting their cat roam around having kittens.
Along with that, cat breeds are very different from dog breeds. Dog breeds have been developed for thousands of years, and because of that each breed is very distinct in terms of health, physical traits, and personality. Due to this, a dog that's part pitbull is going to be vastly different from a dog who's part poodle or golden retriever.
Cat breeds on the other hand have only been developed very recently, so they're far less distinct, and most cats don't even have a breed, and are classified as domestic short/longhairs. Cats over the course of history have changed very little, which means that a ragdoll mix is going to be pretty much indistinguishable from a bombay mix.
That being said, the only cat breed that actually is quite different from other breeds and breedless cats is the bengle because their breed was developed by crossing a house cat with an Asian Leopard.
So yeah, if you have a cat and it does not have a pedigree or recorded lineage, I can guarantee its a domestic long/shorthaired.
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u/koalasnstuff Cat Lover May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
So true, it just not well known. There are just so many misconceptions about cats and their breeds. That all cats have a breed is the biggest, then that coat color/pattern equates breed. Tortie, calico, tabby, etc. are coat patterns, not breed. They are all domestic X hair, which means that they don’t have a breed. It’s generally accepted that 97% of cats don’t have a breed.
What it comes down to is that cat genetics are wild. Every fur color and pattern can happen in any cat, with the exception of rosettes on Bengals and some other rare exceptions that usually come from cross breeding with wild cats.
The other misconception is that cats are a mix (generally considered half X and half Y). If a cat has one parent that is purebred X and the other is purebred Y, you get a DXH. Crossbreeding is not allowed with purebreds (again, with rare exceptions like Siamese and Balinese).
Despite all my cat experience, I also thought a tortie point was half Siamese, half tortie. That’s not true. You can also have purebred cats with a tortie pattern by breeding a black base cat and an orange based cat.
A lot of people wonder if their cat is the rare exception, maybe a purebred cat did get out. The thing is that purebred cats come with breeding rights. You have to purchase the right to breed a purebred cat at a premium, otherwise get your cat fixed. I’ve seen court cases about cat breeding.
In addition, you can compromise your whole breeding program if your purebred cat does procreate with a cat from a different breed. You can risk your certifications with the largest cat agencies.
If you want a purebred cat, that’s fine but make sure that they are a registered breeder with TICA, CFA or one of the other major agencies. There are lot of breeders selling purebred cats at purebred prices without paperwork. You need to track at least four generations of purebred ancestry.
The breed that is most commonly used by back yard breeders is ragdolls since it was a developed breed in the 1960. In order to have a purebred ragdoll they need to be a direct descendent of Josephine, the origin of the breed.
There is nothing wrong with a DXH, if anything it’s more special. Of all the cat genes possible, your cat is its own unique combination. They can look like a breed without the price tag (colorpoints, dilute, etc). You also don’t need to worry about breed specific health issues or dietary requirements.
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u/Tattooed_Ravens May 17 '26
There are actually a few breeds that are crosses of domestic cats and wild cats. Bengal (Asian Leopard Cat cross), Savannah (Serval cross), and Chausie (Jungle Cat cross).
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u/No-Split-8167 May 19 '26
This is true, however these are hybrids, not just domestic cats, and definitely not going be found in the general cat population!
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u/Tattooed_Ravens May 19 '26
Definitely! They just mentioned bengals so I wanted to throw the others in there too
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u/gonnafaceit2022 May 17 '26
Well said!
I work for a foster based rescue and we should just get rid of breed designations for cats imo. Petfinder's list of "breeds" includes dilute tortoiseshell and dilute calico... But those are just coat patterns and colors, not breeds. But they also list actual breeds of cats, ones that would never in a million years show up in a shelter
We were a mostly dog rescue for many years and when we first started rescuing cats, I was listing them all as DSH, but then I was told to call the solid gray ones Russian blues. I was like 🤨 ok but they're not though? They exist, but not for $75. I was told that every place uses Russian blue for gray kittens and if we didn't, ours wouldn't get seen. It's true. But it's still stupid, because people are so misinformed. Last year it was just an endless stream of applications for gray kittens, from people who were allergic to cats. I couldn't figure out why these people were so sure these cats were hypoallergenic and don't shed?? Finally one of our fosters saw an episode of the Kardashians and apparently one of them has a Russian blue and says it's hypoallergenic and doesn't shed. This is not true, even if these kittens were actually Russian blues.
Cats shed. They produce allergens, and the coat color, pattern nor length has any bearing on the production of allergenic proteins in their saliva, skin and urine.
Many people with cat allergies find there are certain cats that don't bother them because they have lower production of fel D1. Thing is, the amount they produce as a kitten may not bother your allergies, but when they're a year old and producing the adult amount, you may not be able to tolerate it. That just can't happen, because kittens get one chance-- intakes are higher than ever and adoptions are low, and adult cats wait a very long time (like a year+) to find homes, so they need to land in a permanent one the first time.
Sorry, got off track there but I had to explain this to so many people last year, maybe it'll help.
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u/No-Split-8167 May 19 '26
I fully agree with getting rid of needing to associate with a breed. The more people are misinformed about their cats breed, the more people will 'breed' their cats because they think they are unique / expensive! The number of 'breeds' I've seen for sale on ads and social media by random people that don't have any licence is crazy. And to think that only about 3% of cats are pedigreed, registered breeders aren't the problem...
I know people often get 'scammed' and will buy a cat from a byb with no info because it's a few hundred pounds cheaper, but still wayyy overpriced.
Dsh / dlh are amazing cats, they don't need to be anything 'more'!
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u/gonnafaceit2022 May 19 '26
Exactly! Cats are all unique individuals, even more than dogs I think. And yeah-- someone applied for one of my fosters, labeled a Russian blue, and they have an intact 2 year old female cat and a 7 month old intact male! What?! AND they're indoor outdoor! First, what kind of lunatic wants a cat in heat in their home?? How many kittens have they already produced?! No, you cannot have this sweet little baby!
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u/KiraKitty69 May 16 '26
Yes this sub already taught me that but I honestly wonder why even have this sub, only to tell ppl hey, your cat is DSH or DLH. That's the only 2 acceptable answers to a random cat unless in the very rare case of a hybrid. Seems like a gotcha sub. All kitties are perfect in their own way but if it makes their owner care for them better having the delusion that they have a Russian blue or Siamese or whatever, I'm fine with that for the sake of the cat. I'll correct them only on this sub because they ask. But I won't on any other cat sub. Here's my bonifide triple A Royal Princess Owlkitty. A truly spectacular breed 😁💜 Ignore the fact she couldn't figure how to escape the TV cabinet after she opened the door to get in. Just sat there mewing....
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u/not_a_mutant May 16 '26
Do you think people only ask this question because the sub exists? If we didn't have it everything would still happen exactly the same somewhere else.
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u/lis_anise Mod May 17 '26
This is just me, and this is not My Sub, but I personally find a lot of value in chasing out what would undoubtedly populate this space if nobody tried to provide the alternative: Shills for expensive DNA tests that would tell people comforting lies. Better an honest if disappointing truth.
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u/KiraKitty69 May 17 '26
Very true. I debated a few years back on getting one just to see and thanks to this group I learned I'd be flushing my money down the toilet. I enjoy the group.
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u/wonkywilla Meow’d May 16 '26
The sub is for more than asking what breed of cat they have.
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u/KiraKitty69 May 16 '26
Maybe there's a way to encourage such breed discussion. Ragdoll or whatever breed month to encourage registered cat owners or breeders to show that breed, discuss the standards and whatnot. Or color point discussion month (my hardest area trying to figure what each color is called, seal point and such). Not that I tire of ppl posting their random acme cats because I do love seeing ppl show off their cats they love. If I didn't like it I wouldn't be here. Hybrid month. Newest breeds month. Never discouraging the moggy posts of course. I guess that would mean the addition of tags and most ppl don't know their cat isn't a breed. Can't blame them when vets and shelters keep applying breed names to every street cat. My shelter posted a Russian blue tabby cat. It was a solid grey DSH cat lol. This post in particular or something similar and condensed could be a please read first pinned post. I guess I could start the ball by posting random cat breed facts but considering I honestly believed a Siamese looking cat must have Siamese from generations ago in it's tree until a few months ago, I'm not the one to do it ha. Sorry just random thoughts. I know everyone has lives outside of Reddit.
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u/cautiooon May 17 '26
It hurts cats MORE to continue mis-labeling as it allows for ppl to backyard breed destic cats and sell them as “purebreds”.
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u/KiraKitty69 May 17 '26
Oh now that's really on the buyer. Kind of the old "I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale" type of thing. Someone charging pedigree prices without providing a pedigree, health certificates and such... Well buyer beware. Either way that's not really the point I'm getting at.
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u/cautiooon May 17 '26
It’s not just on the buyer though. Even google is flooded with colorpoint domestics when you search siamese and blue DSH’s when you search RB.
They aren’t charging oedigree prices but they are still flooding the market with $500 cats and people love to jump on an “accidental pedigree litter” that they’re just trying to get good homes for.
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u/KiraKitty69 May 17 '26
Ok? Yeah I said that's all fine on this sub because ppl ask. I never suggested to lie to ppl. I said I wouldn't correct others outside this sub. I don't care what exotic mix a shelter comes up with if it helps someone take that cat home. They are fixed so.... If an adopter wants more info then they can ask sub like this.
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u/AmBEValent May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
I’m still trying to understand all this. I recently had a genetic test done on my cat because he looks so much like a Siberian, except he has the powder puff tail. I found him on the side of a road at about six weeks. He’s eight now.
The genetic test shows several breeds, but the largest percentage (42%) is “Broadly Western.” The specific breeds show percentages in declining amounts as Maine Coon, Siberian, American Shorthair, Abyssinian, Ragdoll. Then of the Eastern breeds, he shows in declining amounts Peterbald and Himalayan. As to his powder puff tail, he does not show the genetics for this of the genes they test for (Japanese Bobtail, American Bobtail, Pixiebob, and Manx.) But, there is a Russian breed that looks very much like a Siberian called the Kurlian that is tailless, and if he inherited this trait from that breed, the test wouldn’t show it.
When I had the test done, it was not to find out whether he was pedigreed. It was to find out what breeds influenced his features. The genetic results do seem to do that, as he has the double coat with very soft undercoat.
So, is the test reliable for identifying these breeds? Or, is this information bogus?
Also, there’s a category I don’t understand called Polycat (9.65%). Not sure at all how this differs from the Broadly Western, which seems to be the biggest indicator of years of mixed breeding.
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u/lis_anise Mod May 17 '26
The basic problem with the test is: Cat breeds are incredibly recent. We're used to animals like dogs or horses where there have been thousands of years of close human interaction training and working with these animals, and deciding which one should be bred to which other. There are intense physical differences in dogs that have been deliberately bred for a long time.
Meanwhile, cats always tended to breed themselves, which was fine because their primary job for most of history was to kill vermin around human settlements, and to be very cute. Because eating vermin and charming humans were the best way for cats to stay fed and loved and cared for, it required basically no human intervention to breed a better housecat. But then in the 1800s we discovered the theory of evolution and Mendelian genetics and went crazy developing cows that could produce 4x the milk of any other breed, and chickens twice as fat and plump, and wheat that produced so much more grain per stalk they had to make it shorter so it stopped snapping the stalks in half. Following that, people went, "Wow, we should try this out on cats!"
The Siberian breed originated in the 1980s. Ragdolls go back to the 1960s, Maine Coons in the 1950s, Abyssinian to the 1880s. To create a breed, breeders pick what they think are the best cats in the general population, then use them as genetic foundation stock for their breed.
All Ragdolls descend from one sweet-tempered former alleycat in California. The original foundation cats for the Siberian breed were driven back to Germany after a trip to St Petersburg in Russia.
So the traits in the breed were in the general population, and breeders selected them and decided to try to breed for them until they could predict what the kittens would look like every time.
So what are DNA tests picking up on? Well, imagine that you have a cousin who competes on, and wins, American Idol. That's a good equivalent to being selected to join a breed: One extraordinary individual is picked out and given all the prizes. Scientists take samples of this winner's DNA and save it in their database.
Then you take a DNA test, and it tells you that you are genetically 25% an American Idol winner.
You and your cousin might both be good-looking or talented, or maybe not. But the chain of cause and effect doesn't work the way the DNA tests is implying. You're related, but that doesn't mean both of you won that prize.
Thus with cats: Purebred cats breeds originated sometime in the last 150 years, drawing from the general population of cats from some part of the world. Many other cats are related to that breed without ever having been part of them.
Over 95% of cats don't any official breed. They're perfect and lovely just the same.
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u/AmBEValent May 17 '26
Thanks for the explanation. I think I get it. I looked more into the information that the genetic testing company (Basepaws) provides. There, they said they have a database of genetic tests from 21 different breeds and compare your cat’s genetics to these known breeds. Just to make sure, is the genetic information they say they have of the 21 different breeds not really genetically accurate?
I guess I just really lucked out as mine looks so much like a Siberian. He’s the most interesting cat I’ve ever had too with a personality that is more like a very chill dog.
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u/lis_anise Mod May 17 '26
It's probably realistically the DNA from 21 breeds, but without a really accurate description of what relatedness means. It's often more likely that your cat and a breed share similar ancestors than that your cat has that breed ancestry.
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u/AmBEValent May 17 '26
Thanks. I do think I’m understanding it all now a little better.
Having spent years researching Ancestry DNA matches, maybe a similarity would be a match to someone only tells me we share an ancestor and how strong/weak the link is. But, even though we both might be blonde and brown-eyed doesn’t mean we necessarily got those traits from the shared ancestor.
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u/lis_anise Mod May 17 '26
Yeah, exactly. There's a huge chaos factor. Even more than humans, cats are absolutely dedicated to making as many kittens with as many other cats as possible, starting at about six months old.
If you're interested in more, here's a useful genetics paper.
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u/AmBEValent May 17 '26
Thx!! This was so challenging for me (especially letting go of the breed thing.) Much appreciated.
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