Interesting information

Portraits of Popular Breeds at Home and Abroad: Abyssinian cat

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.

 

Related articles

Care and raising

First heat

If you’ve got a little female puppy at home, first heat might catch you off guard, so it’s not a bad idea to make some preparations ahead.

Interesting information

Dogs at work

Domestic dog is the oldest domesticated animal and it has provided accompaniment to humans for 14 thousand years at the minimum. During this time, it underwent numerous changes and a long development. All the dog breeds of today are a result of human...

Interesting information

Dogs and horses

I am not much of a horse person, but from time to time, I like to go horse riding. Usually, I leave my fuzzy friends at home. The presence of horses upsets them. When I was getting my dog fellows, I didn’t think about the fact that not all the breeds...

Interesting information

Why do dogs dig?

If you take pride in your nicely groomed garden and your dog belongs to the category of the so-called diggers, it probably doesn’t make you very happy. However, frantic digging in earth doesn’t please not even us, who wink at a few holes in the grass....

Care and raising

How to train calling with a whistle?

Calling a dog is without any doubt one of the most important commands that the dog should reliably master at any situation. Most often, we call the dog using the command “come”, but we can also emphasise it with a whistle. It pays off mainly in...

Interesting information

Five myths about dogs

I have always thought, that I know my four-legged fellows to their last hair, but there’s always something that manages to surprise me and there’s always a lot to learn from them. Some of the myths are so deep-rooted, that one doesn’t even fall upon...

Výchova a péče

How do the dogs and cats hear?

Simply put: much better, than us, humans. And cats even hear much better than dogs. But from experience, I can say, that it also depends on what and whom they want to listen to. How is it with dogs?

Care and raising

How to unteach your dog to beg?

Does your dog beg for food at the table? Do they beg even from strangers when you’re at a restaurant? Then you should know, that you are one-hundredth percent guilty of this yourself. If a dog learns to beg for human food, it is an educational mistake....

Care and raising

Dog Puzzles

When the weather is lovely rather for ducks than dogs for a longer period of time and long walks don’t come into question, my fluffy friends are getting get bored at home and start with their shenanigans. I always try to think of a home activity to...