Breed Profiles

She was halfway up the bookcase before I'd finished my coffee, then perched on the top shelf yelling down at me like I'd forgotten an important appointment. All two-and-a-bit kilos of her. The Singapura is the smallest cat breed you're ever likely to meet, and she has absolutely no idea, or she knows perfectly well and finds it funny.

I looked after one for a fortnight while a friend travelled, and she rearranged how I think about small cats.

Start with the size, because it's the headline and it really is striking in person. A grown Singapura often weighs less than an ordinary cat does at four months. Females sit around two kilos, males a little more. They're fine-boned and compact, with oversized ears and enormous eyes set in a small face, and a short ticked coat in that warm sepia-brown the breed standard calls sepia agouti. Picking one up feels like holding a warm bird. You become very aware of how breakable she is.

That delicacy deserves to be taken seriously. These are not cats to leave underfoot in a chaotic house, because something this small and light is easy to tread on, catch in a closing door, or hurt entirely by accident. Toddlers and Singapuras need supervising together, not because of the cat's temper, which is lovely, but because a heavy-handed cuddle from a small child can genuinely injure an animal this size. They also feel the cold more than a chunky moggy would, so they hunt down warm laps, sunny windowsills, and the airing cupboard with real determination.

Now the voice. Here's the joke of the breed. This minuscule cat is not remotely quiet. My friend's girl kept up a running commentary on everything: the tin opener, the front door, a pigeon on the fence, my choice of television. It wasn't the piercing yowl of a Siamese, more a busy, chatty, insistent little voice that followed me from room to room asking questions. If you want a silent, aloof cat, the Singapura will disappoint you several times an hour. If you like a companion who answers back, you'll adore it.

They are people cats through and through. Curious, playful well into adulthood, and genuinely attached to their humans rather than merely tolerant of them. She had to be involved in whatever I was doing. On the desk while I worked, in the cardboard box the second it was empty, at my elbow at dinner making her case with both eyes. That sociability is the best thing about the breed and also the thing you have to plan around. A Singapura left alone all day, every day, with no company and nothing to climb, gets lonely and bored, and a bored one is a noisy, mischievous one.

Give them height and give them a friend. Cat trees, wall shelves, the top of the wardrobe. They love being up above everything, surveying the room from a safe altitude. And because they're so social, most do far better with a second cat or a busy household than they do rattling around an empty flat waiting for someone to come home.

Grooming is almost nothing, mercifully, after the coat commitment some breeds demand. That short close coat needs a quick weekly pass with a soft brush, or honestly just a damp hand run over it, to keep the sheen. The usual care applies otherwise. Keep the claws trimmed, the ears clean, and stay on top of dental care, since small cats can be prone to tartar and gum trouble as they age.

On health, the Singapura is generally a hardy little animal without a long list of frightening hereditary conditions attached to it. Two things are worth knowing. There's an inherited anaemia, pyruvate kinase deficiency, that appears in some lines and can be DNA tested, so any decent breeder will screen for it and show you the results. Their tiny size can also complicate anaesthesia and birthing, which is more a matter for the breeder and your vet than a daily worry for you. And because they carry so little body reserve, keep a close eye on appetite and weight. A small cat that stops eating for a day is a vet call, not a wait-and-see.

Buy from someone who health-tests and raises kittens underfoot in the home rather than in a shed. The breed had a murky patch in its history over exactly where it originally came from, and the gene pool is small, so a careful honest breeder matters far more here than a bargain price.

Who suits a Singapura? Someone who's around a lot, or who'll provide feline company, and who wants an interactive chatty little shadow instead of a decorative ornament. Flat dwellers can do beautifully with them, since they need vertical space and attention rather than acreage. Gentle, reasonably settled households, ideally.

Who doesn't? Anyone out all day hoping for a low-contact independent cat. Homes with very young boisterous children and nobody supervising, given how fragile these cats are. And anyone who genuinely wants peace and quiet, because this cat has opinions and intends to share them.

She went home after two weeks. The flat felt enormous and far too silent. I kept expecting a small brown face to appear over the top of a door, telling me off about something. I rather missed being told off.