Where do Cat Breeds Come From?
Some new breeds are carefully designed – match cat A with cat B and combine the body shape and color of A with the fur type and head shape of B, breed the offspring for several generations to get a consistent type and you have your new breed. Admittedly my description of mix-and-match is an immense over-simplification of a complex process which occurs over many years, but in essence that is what is happening. Someone hopefully has an ultimate “look” in mind and tries to create that look by carefully choosing and mating foundation cats to introduce chosen qualities into the great design. Current mix-and-match breeding programs often involve a wildcat species hybridized with a domestic variety to produce wild-looking domestic cats. The breeders are attempting to import the wild look (pattern and conformation) into the domestic cat gene pool. Some wildcats naturally interbreed with free-ranging domestics; some do so occasionally in the wild. Sometimes cats take things into their own hands
