The Abyssinian is a short-haired elegant creature with a strong personality and history going back to the ancient Egypt. It wants to be a rightful family member and you won’t get enough of its thick, silky fur.
The Abyssinian probably lived at the courts of Pharaohs in the ancient Egypt. You can see it on various pictures from that period and also the similarity of this breed with the statues and found mummified cats is obvious. Even though there are no conclusive proofs of their kinship.
However, we do know for sure that an ancestor of the Abyssinian cat was brought to the Great Britain in 1868 by a field marshal from Ethiopia, called Abyssinia then. This cat was called Zula and it was probably the mother of all Abyssinians. However, she didn’t look very similar to the current Abyssinians except for their typical hair colour. It was recognized quite soon in Britain, in 1882.
The following events including both world wars and the epidemics of cat leukaemia took care of the vast reduction of the members of this breed and it almost became extinct. The situation started to change only in the 1960s when the Abyssinians started becoming popular and nowadays, it is one of the most well-known and popular short-haired breeds of cats.
As I have already mentioned, the Abyssinians have a strong personality, therefore, they are not suitable for everyone. They are very smart, extrovert and stubborn cats. Even though they are still elegant and mostly quiet, they can clearly tell a human what they want. They are incredibly curious and restless explorers. They will carefully perform an inspection of anything, starting from a shopping bag to a visitor. And they don’t like to take risks.
To be happy, they need a lot of contact with their family and to be its rightful member which is not missed out from any situation. So if you spend most of the day outside the house and the cat would be home alone, it would suffer. They get on very well with other cats and they can also be great companions of dogs.
And if you don’t know how what an Abyssinian cat looks like, it has a muscular and flexible body of a slightly oriental type. In general, it looks light and elegant. Its fur is thick, soft and silky. Its original colour is wild, the so-called “ruddy”. Other colours also occurred over some time but always with some kind of ticking. It means that there are two or three stripes with darker colour on each individual hair. You can see the same colouring in wild rabbits as well.
The interesting fact is that kittens are always born with dark fur which gets lighter as they grow older. It can happen that a long-haired kitten is in a litter – it is a Somali cat. Because it can have a gene of long hair.
Do you have an Abyssinian at home? I like the ruddy colour most, it makes them look interesting and wild.
Did you know that the domestic cat which is now kept as a pet all over the world, is probably a domesticated form of the wild cat, specifically of its subspecies the African wildcat, European wildcat and Asiatic wildcat?
Apart from regular care for the fur and dog’s teeth we should include also the inspection and cleaning of the eyes and ear inspection in the list of everyday tasks. Even though the cats are rather known for cleanliness, it’s important also for a...
Cat is a perfect tool for hunting. It owes it to the dozens of years of evolution. While in dogs, their physical signs have been emphasised or suppressed, cats got to keep, apart from several exceptions, their main anatomical features unchanged. In...
According to various statistics, the number of cats in our country is increasing. Not only dogs, but also cats belong to increasingly more common pets. So, it can happen to us more often, that we'll meet an abandoned cat in the street and we're...
Some dogs take the arrival of a new family member in a hard way. Previously, we described how to prepare them for this situation already before the baby even arrives home and today, we will take a look at the introduction itself.
It's no longer a strange thing when a municipality sets up a dog park or a dog playground. Due to frequent regulation of off-leash movement of dogs, this should, however, often be obligatory. Do you know how to behave in such places so that you...
Another possible sport at which you can play with your dog and exercise with them at the same time, is the Dog Puller. You can practice it with all the dog breeds, no matter the size or age.
Nowadays, cats are increasingly more often becoming members of our households. Cat toilets producers are adapting to this trend as well. They can provide cats with a greater comfort in their daily need. From the perspective of the owners, the producers...
Vacation time is finally here and many of us are planning where they will be headed this year. If you decide to go for an adventure by car and to take your dog friend with you as well, a bit of advice might come in handy on how to provide safety for...
Of course that we won’t talk about how to teach a dog the swimming technique. We want to talk about how to teach the dog to get used to water and how to make swimming a positive experience for it. Since not every one of them trusts water and some are...
If you’re planning to bring a new addition home and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a kitten or an adult cat, it is necessary to prepare the flat for it as well. Do you know what will the animal need and what you shouldn’t forget about or how to choose...
No matter how thorough we are with the prevention, a situation might come up when a dog or a cat will get to a poisonous thing, whether it’s by our inattention or it's somebody else’s fault. That’s why it’s not off-topic to prepare yourself for the...
