longhair cats

Surely, the American Curl is a special breed and what's more interesting – naturally occurred. The history of the American Curl starts in USA in 1981. Two stray kittens with distinctive curled ears visited a home of Grace Ruga to feed and she decided to leave them. Unfortunately, one of the kittens was traumatized during a wind storm and didn't survive.

Did you know that many of the cat breeds were actually cultivated with occasional cross-breedings which helped to improve and diversify a breed? This is no exception for the Balinese. Previously known as a long-haired version of the Siamese, the Balinese cats won hearts of the audience gracefully walking in the cat fancier's world.

The origins of the sacred Burmese cats are clouded in mystery. The story goes that cats inhabiting the temples of Burma (Myanmar) were actually a bearers of priests' souls and were considered sacred.  In 1919, two of the sacred cats were taken from Burma to France. On their way to France, unfortunately, one of the cats died. It was a male cat Madalpour. Sita, a female cat, however, successfully finished her trip and gave birth to kittens.

The cultivation of the Chantilly-Tiffany started in 1969 by Jennie Robinson. At first these cats were registered as the Sable Foreign Longhairs, they were popularized as the Tiffany and then registered as the Chantilly.
The history of the Chantilly-Tiffany has its ups and downs. Some thought the breed was actually a cross between the Burmese and the Himalayan.

The Cymric cats are longhaired cousins of the Manx cats. Before 1960x, the longhair kittens of the Manx cats were petted and excluded from the breeding programs. In 1960s, nevertheless, these longhair cats started to gain popularity.

It was 1920s when breeders started to work on creating a cat with the Persian type and the Siamese color. They succeeded to achieve it in a few decades only after World War II. The breed got a recognition for the first time in 1957.

The Javanese is a longhair cousin of the Colorpoint Shorthair. This breed is recognized in some organizations only while in others it’s registered under the Colorpoint and the Colorpoint Longhair names.

The Javanese cats were named after the Java island and were cultivated in the USA by breeders who wanted to diversify the available colors of the Siamese. 

The Kashmir cats are a type of the Persian or the Himalayan cat breeds which is recognized as a separate breed in a few cat fanciers organizations only. The Kashmir cats were cultivated in 1930s when breeders were working on developing the Siamese color in the Persian cats. These efforts produced a solid chocolate and lilac cats with a semi-long and long hair.

The breed establishment began in the USA in the early 1980s when a curly kitten was born in a barn of Linda and Richard Koehl. As the kitten produced even more curly kittens in the following years, farmers decided to establish a breed named LaPerm.

Even though the origins of the Maine Coons are clouded, their known history starts in the colonial period of America which makes them one of the oldest American breeds. There are many stories of the Main Coon origins while the most trustworthy is a story about Captain Coon who imported the first ever Main Coon cat to America in 1700s.