Breed Profiles

I did not choose a LaPerm. The LaPerm chose me, mostly by shedding a single curl onto my wrist at the shelter and then staring as if to say you are ours now. I had gone in for a tabby. I came out with a cat whose coat looked like it had been permed by a careless angel, soft ringlets down her back and a belly of loose waves that moved when she breathed. That was Mimi, and the rug had been pulled, gently, permanently.

The breed is rare, which I did not know until the vet asked what she was and then googled it in front of me. LaPerms started with a spontaneous mutation on an Oregon farm in the eighties, a bald kitten who grew a curly coat, and the line spread from there. Mimi's curls are the whole point and the whole trouble. They spring back when you smooth them. They frizz in humidity. They look styled even when she has been asleep in a laundry basket for four hours.

People call them hypoallergenic and I want to be straight with you. They are not. The curly coat is low-shedding, which means less fur floating onto your black pants, and that helps some allergy sufferers. But the allergen is in the saliva and skin oil, not the fur, and a LaPerm still grooms herself and still leaves that on the furniture. If you are allergic, spend time with one before you commit. The low-shedding part is real. The hypoallergenic label is marketing, and I will not sell you a lie about a cat.

The texture is the strange delight. Run your hand down her back and it feels like warm wool that has decided to be alive. The curls catch light differently, so she looks lit from within in a sunbeam. She loves the touching, leans into a hand like a dog, and will follow me room to room with the particular urgency of a cat who has decided I am the source of all warmth. Affectionate is too small a word. She is a shadow with opinions.

Brushing is a joke with this breed, and I mean that literally. A regular slicker brush slides off the curls and does nothing, or worse, stretches them into a sad mess. I use a wide-tooth comb, gently, once a week, mostly to catch the occasional tangle behind the ears and along the belly. She tolerates it the way she tolerates most of my schemes, with patience and a quiet judgment. The coat defies every brush you own because it was never meant to be brushed into submission. It wants to curl, and it will.

Health-wise she has been easy, which surprised me given how unusual the breed is. No repeated ear infections, no eye trouble, no dramatic vet drama across her years. The rarity means you should find a breeder who tests and is honest about lines, because small gene pools hide problems if nobody is looking. We got lucky with temperament and constitution both, and I credit a breeder who answered my nervous emails for a month before the adoption.

She talks. Not constant, but a soft chirp when she wants the window open and a louder one when she wants it closed again, because cats. The curls bounce when she trots, a ridiculous happy motion that has ended more than one bad day of mine. I work from home and she sleeps on the keyboard, on the papers, on the one cable I need, with the confidence of a creature who knows the curls buy her forgiveness.

Baths are their own comedy with a curly cat. The coat soaks heavy and then springs back as she dries, a wet creature transforming into a wool sculpture over the heater vent. She tolerated water better than most cats, maybe because the breed's curiosity outruns its pride. I kept the sessions short and the towels warm, and she emerged, eventually, as a fluff of ringlets that took an hour to set right. The curls, I learned, look their best the day after a bath, once the waves have decided where to settle.

She played like a dog, which is the other thing nobody told me. A LaPerm will fetch a crumpled paper ball, will chase a wand toy until she pants, will bring the toy back with the serious focus of a retriever who has found her calling. We played every evening and it became the ritual that ended my workday, the signal to close the laptop and be present for the small creature who had been waiting, judging, on the desk. Affection like hers is not passive. It demands to be met.

The diet was unremarkable, which I counted as a win after the drama of other pets. Good food, measured meals, a water fountain she preferred to any bowl, and the occasional vet visit that always ended with the same verdict, healthy, keep doing what you are doing. Rare breeds carry risk in the gene pool, and I stayed in touch with her breeder for years, partly out of friendship and partly out of the quiet hope that knowing her lines would buy us warning time if anything stirred. So far, knock on the creaking wooden chair, nothing has.

Mimi is older now and the coat has softened, the ringlets looser, but she still sheds that single perfect curl onto my wrist when she wants attention, the same trick from the shelter, still working, still mine to fall for. I would take the frizz, the low-shedding-not-hypoallergenic truth, the keyboard naps, all of it, every time. Some cats are pets. This one is a small, curly, opinionated weather I am glad to live inside.