Japanese bobtail

Japanese bobtail
Japanese bobtail
Fur length	Short hair or semi long hair
Weight
generally recognized colors
not generally recognized colors
permitted coat drawing
List of cat breeds

Japanese Bobtail (also Japanese stub- tailed cat ) is a Japanese cat breed that is notable for its short tail and hopping gait. Today it is bred in a long-haired ( Japanese Bobtail Longhair ) and a short-haired variant ( Japanese Bobtail Shorthair ). In the country of origin Japan this breed is called Kazoku-neko ( 家族 猫 ; in German "family cat "), the rare, three-colored breed is called Mike-neko ( 三毛 猫 ; in German "three-fur cat").

origin

The introduction of the Japanese Bobtail cat breed originally began at the beginning of the Edo period (1603–1867) at the Japanese imperial court , where it was first bred. Cats with docked tails had already reached Japan as gifts from the Chinese emperor, and the Japanese court then began with the targeted breeding of an independent, stub-tailed cat breed. Background were both in China and in Japan, the imperial silk moth - plantations , which regularly by rodents , which have been hit and birds tracked falling en masse to the victim. For the silk industry , the corresponding economic and material losses were a fiasco . There were domesticated cats who took special care of rodents, but their long tails destroyed the precious webs of silkworms. That is why China had already begun to dock cats' tails. Finally, in Japan, the first targeted selection of stub-tailed cats was successful . Japanese bobtails are often confused with the completely rodless Manx cat . They differ from the dominant mutations that characterize the Kurilian Bobtail and Pixie-Bob breeds . In Japan, three-colored specimens are particularly valued. Around 1960, American soldiers stationed in Japan discovered the Japanese Bobtail and were immediately fascinated. In 1968 Elizabeth Freret imported three specimens to the United States for her breeding program . In 1976 the Japanese Bobtail breed was officially recognized by the Cat Fanciers' Association .

Legends

According to a Japanese legend , the breed came about through an accident: one night a temple cat caught fire with its tail while sleeping, ran through the city and set countless houses on fire. Thereupon the emperor is said to have ordered that the tails of all cats had to be docked so that such a misfortune would not happen again.

literature

• Ju Brown, John Brown: China, Japan, Korea. Culture and Customs. BookSurge, North Charleston SC 2006, ISBN 1-4196-4893-4 .
• Bruce Fogle: Encyclopedia of the Cat. The Definitive Visual Guide. New edition. Dorling Kindersley, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-4053-2149-5 .
• Peter Warner : Perfect Cats. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1991, ISBN 0-283-06049-2 .
• Jill C. Wheeler: Japanese Bobtail Cats. ABDO, Minneapolis MN 2012, ISBN 978-1-61478-497-5 .

Web links

Commons : Japanese Bobtail  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Jill C. Wheeler: Japanese Bobtail Cats. 2012, pp. 6-8.