I saw someone on Etsy is selling items to raise money for their Bengal kitten’s cataract surgery. I hope they are able to do so, but honestly, unless they magically obtained two purebred Bengals at no cost, they should have been prepared for this additional expense. Bengals are known to have cataract/vision issues. Many purebred species simply have defects as a result of maintaining the breed: Persians have respiratory conditions – actually most squashed-face cats do – Maine Coons have hip issues, and so forth. A great many cat breeds are subject to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (). Bengals are not the only cats prone to cataracts – Abyssinians and Himalayans can have them too. Anyone who plans to purchase a purebred should do research on this – are well-known and some breeders even that their Bengals are cataract-free.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy a cat if you can’t afford to care for ALL of its problems, including those that were unforeseen at time of purchase. I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask for help on the internet, either. What I’m saying is that you should do research and strongly consider what you’re doing when you commit to a purebred cat. Have you noticed that I haven’t mentioned the good ol’ mutt cat yet? That’s because their genetic makeup is a big mess, and they are less likely to have these genetic problems that result directly from maintaining a breed.
And yet, in the grand scheme of things, is a kitty with cataracts so bad? At a recent kitten adoption fair, I met a four-month-old blind kitten named Sarah. She was the sweetest thing, and she snuggled right up to me when I asked to hold her. Her eyes were a bit funny-looking (I was told it was her third eyelid that was visible) but she was a purring machine. Her foster mom said she has no problem getting around and was quite sociable with the other cats. I wish I could have taken her home, she was perfectly healthy, just blind!
What’s really unfortunate, though, the worst breed-specific defect I can think of ( aside), is Manx Syndrome. The gene that shortens or eliminates a Manx’s tail sometimes goes too far, and the nerves are incomplete in the cat’s rear end. This results in incontinence, bowel control issues, balance problems (present in most Manx types, as cats use their tails for balance), and difficulty walking. Manx syndrome has sometimes been compared to spina bifida in humans. If you’d like to learn more about Manx Syndrome, read at Best Friends.
If you want to donate to Tsavo, the Bengal kitten who prompted this article, . But if you’re buying a purebred pet, please check out what might be down the road for you in the future. We lost Empress Wu when she was just seven years old. She was a purebred Maine Coon, bought by my in-laws, but they gave her to us. She liked standing on your chest (all 17 lbs of her), touching your lips if you whistled a tune (she hated that), and wiping her paws on the plastic mat where her water bowl sat. We’re not sure exactly what killed her, it may have been HCM, it may have been lung cancer, it may have been fluid in her pericardial sac, we don’t know. But it was overnight, 12 hours from start to finish, and I miss her like hell. Don’t put yourself through that. Research potential breed defects before you buy a purebred.
This applies to dogs as well. My mother was a lover of collies, and she was constantly complaining about breed defects that she attributed directly to the AKC’s policies on what was considered desirable or not in a breed. Collies have been bred to the point where they can and do have serious vision problems (with small, close-set eyes) and in some cases a quite nasty overbite that makes eating difficult.
We have never had a purebred cat; the seven with whom I grew up and the three that own me now are all mixtures.
it makes me ill how people do this to these poor friendly social creatures who do no ill and love us.
heterozygosity = health. it’s genetic diversity that keeps individual animals and their whole species healthy and viable.
these “pets” get tortured to death by defects *we* introduced into their genomes, just to make them look “pretty”. i think they’re prettier when they’re whole.
I’ve adopted, “shelter” cats and dogs in the past.
My main dilemma with these creatures is that they carry over ‘Starvation Mentality’.
They were strays, most of them mutts from mothers that were probably ferrel and malnutritioned themselves. Malnutrition, itself contributes to defects and malformaties.
Anyhoot, they climb on counter tops and kitchen tables and steal food and are never quite satiated.
I end up taking them right back. They are broken and irrepairable.
There is something to be said for the togetherness and continuity of selective breeding.