Breed Profiles

Is the sturdy shorthaired tabby asleep on your sofa an American Shorthair? Almost certainly not, and the reason matters more than it sounds. This is the single most misused breed name in cats, and untangling it tells you what the breed actually is.

Here is the distinction. A domestic shorthair, sometimes called a moggy, is not a breed. It is a description, meaning a cat of mixed or unrecorded ancestry with short fur. Wonderful cats, often the healthiest cats in the room, and the majority of pet cats worldwide. An American Shorthair is a pedigree breed with a written standard, registered parentage, and generations of deliberate selection behind it. The two can look alike at a glance, which is exactly why shelters and vets sometimes label a shorthaired tabby as an American Shorthair on paperwork. It is shorthand, not identification. If your cat did not come with a registration certificate from a recognised body, it is a domestic shorthair, and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

What makes the breed a breed is where it started. The cats that came over on ships to colonial North America were working animals, kept aboard and then on farms to control rodents. They were not pampered. Winters were long, food was what you caught, and the cats that survived to breed were the ones that were solid, healthy, weatherproof and good at the job. Several centuries of that produced a distinct type: broad-chested, heavy-boned, muscular, with a dense coat and a round, open, honest-looking face. In the early twentieth century American breeders decided this native working cat was worth preserving as it was, rather than losing it into the fashionable imported longhairs. The breed was registered under the name Domestic Shorthair, then renamed American Shorthair in the mid sixties precisely to stop the confusion with random-bred cats. The renaming did not entirely work, as anyone reading a shelter listing can confirm.

Which brings up the other comparison people make, and it is worth answering directly. The American Shorthair is not a British Shorthair. They are separate breeds with separate histories and noticeably different builds once you see them side by side. The British is the rounder one, cobbier, with a very dense plush coat, a broad round head and full cheeks, bred toward that compact teddy bear look. The American is longer in the body, more athletic, leaner in outline, with a slightly less rounded face and a coat that is hard and close rather than plush. Temperamentally the British tends toward the reserved and undemonstrative, a cat that sits near you rather than on you. The American is generally the more sociable and adaptable of the two, easier with children, more inclined to join in. Both are calm cats. They are calm in different ways.

The coat comes in an enormous range of colours and patterns, but the one everybody pictures is the silver classic tabby: dense black swirls on a pale silver ground, with the bullseye marking on the flank. It is the signature of the breed and it is genuinely striking. Brown tabbies, creams, blacks, blues, tortoiseshells and bicolours all occur too. The fur is short, thick, and easy to look after, needing a weekly brush and rather more during the seasonal shed.

Living with one is uncomplicated in the best sense. They are even-tempered, quiet, not clingy, not aloof. They generally handle a busy household well, tolerate being picked up by careful children, and usually accept dogs and other cats without drama if introductions are done properly. They are not lap-glued. They tend to pick a spot in the room where the people are and settle there, coming over for attention on their own schedule. They keep an interest in play far longer than many breeds, and the hunting inheritance is real: give one a wand toy and watch the farm cat wake up.

They are also slow to mature. Full size and full adult build can take three or four years, so a lanky teenage American Shorthair is not necessarily going to stay that shape.

The honest downsides. Weight is the big one. This is a breed with a hearty appetite, a naturally heavy frame that hides gain, and a temperament relaxed enough that they will happily do very little all day. Indoor American Shorthairs put on weight easily and obesity brings diabetes, arthritis and a shorter life. Measure the food rather than free-feeding, weigh the cat every couple of months, and build in daily play. A breed described as easygoing needs an owner who is not equally easygoing about the food bowl.

On health, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the condition the breed community screens for. It is the most common heart disease in cats generally, it thickens the heart muscle, and it can be present with no outward signs until something goes badly wrong. Responsible breeders have their breeding cats scanned by a cardiologist with echocardiography, repeated over the years rather than done once, and they will tell you the dates and results. Ask. A breeder who is vague about heart screening is telling you something. Beyond HCM, polycystic kidney disease occasionally appears and hip dysplasia has been reported, but the breed as a whole is robust and commonly reaches its mid teens or beyond.

If you want a first pedigree cat, this is one of the sensible answers. No extreme features, no flat face, no fragile bone structure, no elaborate coat care, no demanding temperament that punishes inexperience. What you get is a solid, friendly, low-drama cat with a working past and a good chance of a long healthy life. Just do not confuse buying one with adopting the shorthaired tabby at your local rescue, because that cat deserves a home too, and it deserves to be called by its right name.