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The British Shorthair is the British breed par excellence and the oldest one. It was developed in the 19th century from a careful selection of cats that had been roaming the forests and streets of Great Britain for centuries and which had been surely brought there by the Roman legions. |
| The British Shorthair breed appeared for the first time in the feline exhibitions in 1871, in the Crystal Palace of London, where a blue female won the first prize of the exhibition and a brown tabby male the greatest cat award. | |
| Soon after that, British breeders, knowing the new recognized breed’s advantages, started to cross the British to the Angora, from which the modern Persian would develop. The Persian then turned out to be one of the most popular breeds in the world. Its attractive coat left the British in second place. |
| Two world wars imposed a fatal backward movement for the breed. Few surviving British breeders had to cross their cats with other races so that the British could survive because there were very few cats with sufficiently good characteristics. The selected breed for that purpose was the Persian, which made the head of the British shorthair higher and mightier, the nose shorter, the body more compact and the cat structure stronger. From these crossings came out the so-called British longhair. |
| However, this crossing is not allowed by the feline associations today, but it is necessary to recognize that at that moment it gave excellent results and that, thanks to the introduction of the Persian, the British got to be the cat that we know today: just a teddy bear. |
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The British is a sweet, sociable and balanced cat. They love caresses and usually accompany their owner wherever s/he goes, but a cat of this breed needs its own space from time to time. This cat is always in sight and does not need to feel that it is the centre of the world. A British owner knows and is fascinated by the cat’s capacity to communicate by the glance. The British shorthair cat only meows when their glance was ignored in the first place. |
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| Not counting his daily minutes of game and play (which the cat still maintains in the adult age), the British is a calm cat and only very rarely causes any damage at home. For this reason, the breed adapts without problems to living in an apartment. However, if the British has the opportunity to live outside, it will extraordinarily demonstrate its talents for hunting. | |
| The British shorthair doesn’t have any problems to live with other animals, and is the ideal friend for children. | |
In relation to nutritional habits, the British shorthair can eat anything, reason why it may have a tendency to get fat. Thanks to its robust build, the cat of this breed very seldom gets sick. |
His short hair doesn’t need special care; however, it is necessary to brush the coat every once in a while because the cat sheds a lot due to the thick coat characteristic of the breed. |
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Scale of points (FIFe) |
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