British shorthair is medium to large cat. It is chunky and substantial with broad, rounded chest, and the male is much larger than the female. The face is round with full cheeks and the nose is short and broad. The chin is deep and strong. The tip of the chin is in line vertically with the tip of the nose. The ears are small and rounded and set so as to blend with the round contour of the head. The eyes are large and round. The head is set on a short thick neck. The body is cobby with a short level back. The chest is deep and the shoulders are strong. The legs are short and strong with round paws. The tail is thick and of medium length. Overall appearance of this breed with its short bull neck, standing on strong muscular legs and well rounded paws, is that of a solid, muscular cat, with no fat on its body, pleasing to the eye and very amenable to handling.

They are very easy-going and intelligent cats. They are quiet, and watchull of their surrounding. Not famous for grace or acrobatics, they are slow in jumping and climbing, because they prefer to stay on the ground. Favorized as family cat, many kids love them. They don't need to be in the center of the attention, that makes them ideal companions for cats wich must be in center of the atttention.

ORIGIN: British shorhair is coming from Great Britain, as the name says. It is very old and very large breed. Origins go all the way back to the crossbreed of european shorthair which originaly resided in Great Britain and Roman domesticated cat which Romans brought to the island. In that natural crossbreeding one very resistant breed which remaind developed but unchanged for centuries, probably because of isolation from the rest of Europe. First breeders in 19th century had great basis for selecting specific traits and breeded them further. The first official showing of british shorthair was in London in 1871. In the same century Brittish cam to know Persian and Siamese so interest for such breeds started to grow. Breeders recognized that and started to breed one specific type of british shorthair, later known as British Blue. Before that there were plenty of different colors in that breed because breeded cats weren't very different form nonbreeded shorthairs in natural breeding process.

Then came wars, First and Second. People couldn't look after their cats so great many of them perished. There wasn't not enough of them to avoid incest breeding. So almost irrepairable mistakes were made. The breeders have to do something or entire breed would perish. Some breeders started to cross them with persians so several new colors were introduced. But other wanted to stick with british blue, but they needed new gene material. Those breeders start to cross them with Chartreux which was very similar in color with British blue. And british shorthair was saved, but something else happened. British shorthair nad Chartreux became so similar that in 1970 they were united in the same breed by the name British shorthair. That was a great mistake because several Chartreux breeders retained pure Chartreux breed, not mixed woth british shorthair and they proved that those cats were not the same breed. SO in 1977th they were divided into two breeds again.

STANDARD:

Accepted colors:

Other links: CFA TICA CCA ACFA SFDH WCF FBRL

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