Prologue:
Breeders of companion pets are individualists, especially when it comes to animals which are being bred for exhibitions. They all have their own little plans and secret recipes for victory. With these, they hope to outshine their colleagues by presenting the next exquisite specimen that’s going to grand at the next show. There’s little honesty in breeding. Honesty lacks especially, in cases where genetic defects in breeding stock are concerned. And so it happens on a regular basis, that breeders make the same decisions, consequently the same mistakes and, even worse, often even accentuate each other’s mistakes in the process.

In breeding for titles we can all point out numerous examples. The championship stud cat for instance. Many breeders aspire breeding animals equaling his quality, and so, they all turn to this boy for stud service. What they do not realize however, is that this gorgeous champion, like every other cat in the breed, possesses numerous genes that are defective. The result will not be surprising. When progeny of this stud is mated together some generations later, the odds are that the defects that the stud carried, will become visible in the kittens. “Unexpectedly” kittens with inherited defects are born. In most cases, the defect will already have been in the breed, but every now and again this intense use of a single stud will cause an explosion of yet another inherited defect.

All the breeders intended to do was fixate the “good genes” of this stud within their lines and to spread them through the breed. And in most cases, this will have been achieved. However, what they hardly realized, is that in doing this, they also fixated the stud’s defective genes, and spread those through the breed as well. Using this technique in breeding doesn’t just spread the “good” genes, the “bad” and “unwanted” genes will just tag along. We desperately need a different approach.

But there’s always the breeding objective, right?
In the breeding of pets, including purebred cats we have always subliminally assumed that breeding is a matter that just concerns breeders. For one, every breed club, association and registry states in their statutes that preserving and improving the breed are the main objectives. These objectives seem to be crystal clear, they have always been supported by virtually every breeder and so it just seems to be a matter of sticking to those objectives.

But if we look at those objectives in a slightly more critical way, it appears that we are left with some questions. What, for instance, does “preserve” mean? What are we trying to preserve? Is that the appearance, the exterior, of the breed? Or does it also include the behavioral aspects that are typical for the breed, it’s uniqueness? And are there any traits in any breed, that we really rather wouldn’t preserve at all? And this is how we get to the point of “improving”. Improving means to make something better than it was. To head in a direction (or a state) that we consider to be better. But who are “we” in this case? Are “we” the breeders? The judges? The ones that buy the kittens? Are “we” some of us, or all of us together? Who came up with the idea that anything needed improving on? And how did that work out for the cats, were they better off afterwards?

When we decided we were going to preserve the breed, wasn’t it very beautiful already? Did we really need to improve that much? We have to assume that when pedigreed breeding was first started, every need for some improvement was present. Most breeds are derived from groups of “more or less similar looking individuals”. They were recognizable as a group, but within the group there were still many differences. A little more homogeneity couldn’t hurt. But how long can we keep on improving the exterior, keep on striving for homogeneity? And since we are speaking of “improving”, we still have to touch on the subject of traits that are typical for certain breeds. Do noses have to become even shorter? Do the ears have to become even larger? Do the torso’s have to become even more elongated and slim or do they have to become even rounder and cobbier? Can any criteria or boundaries be set for this?

And how does all this attention for the exterior traits relate to the “traits” health and temperament? Which part of the space we have for selection should be reserved for those? How do we define good health and a good temperament? Does this only mean not sick and not out of the ordinary? When we speak about exterior we can clearly define pretty, prettier, prettiest. This we can measure (compare). We hardly ever hear about health in this way; because it’s something we don’t know how to measure. And when it comes to temperament, terms to describe good, better, best are completely lacking, period. In short, it would be very desirable for us to try setting clear criteria and giving meaning to the objectives “to preserve” and “to improve”. Criteria and a meaning that everybody can understand, and that everybody can agree to. Too many questions exist, including for breeders, and they need a clear breeding objective as much as anyone.

Wishes and demands of the parties involved.
No matter from which angle we look at it, the breeders are the ones who decide on the quality of the next generations. They are the ones who set their priorities when applying selection, they are the ones who decide which cats will become breeding queens and they decide which toms are going to sire their litters. They create what “people” (society) perceives as “the breed”. The outcome is irreversible; the breeders combined will be held responsible for all aspects, positive or negative, within their breed.

This seems to be only fair. However, we do have to note that there are huge differences in the ways individual breeders give meaning to the verbs “to preserve” and “to improve”. Some are mainly preoccupied with improving noses and ears, and seem to forget all about the animal that lives behind that nose and under those ears; a cat with a right to a good quality of life. Thankfully, there are many others who are consciously trying to create as high a quality of wellbeing for their cats as possible.

When we have a closer look at the positive and negative expressions of a breed, we can conclude that even the terms “positive” and “negative” don’t hold to same meaning for everyone. The different parties involved each have, from their own perspective, their own definition of what is important, wanted or useful (positive) and of what is unwanted or even harmful (negative). Where one person can be ecstatic about a certain head shape, the next person might worry whether an animal with such a head can still properly function. A breeder of toy dogs once explained that his breed wasn’t meant to walk; it was meant to sit in laps. And thus he wondered, if the hassle and worries about luxating patellas and other function disorders weren’t immensely exaggerated.

We can go over the interests of the different parties involved one by one and try to find out which expectations those parties might have of the results of our breeding policies.

It’s self-explanatory why we should first look at the the interest of the cat. A cat, like every other living, breathing creature, has a right to a life without pain, fear, stress or other manifestations of a lack of wellbeing. Life itself has taught us, that this ideal isn’t completely within reach, not even for us humans. We’ll have to live with that and accept that. What we can do while making breeding and selection choices for our cats though, is to insure the biggest possible chance of wellbeing for the kittens that are being born. If we were to add anything to the breeding objective on behalf of the cat, it would only ask for this one thing; a long healthy life, enjoying a great sense of wellbeing throughout. For the cat, it’s not important whether it’s the most exquisite looking specimen, as long as it has a good quality of life.

The interests of the kittenbuyer (the owner, the “consumer”) will start to play a part once he or she decides to purchase a specimen of a certain breed of cat. The owner-to-be chooses a certain breed because he/she is enchanted by the type and sometimes the typical character of the breed. Just once in a while we see kittenbuyers whose expectations are mainly high in regard to the stature and image the cat will provide him/her with. The owner-to-be starts out with certain expectations that aren’t always met. With disappointed new owners it’s often hard to distinguish whether the cause lies within the cat or the owner. Sometimes problems in the cat can clearly be pointed out, sometimes the shortcomings of the owner cause the disappointment, only because false expectations were held when starting with a certain breed. But, in general we can accurately describe the interests that buyers have when acquiring a cat. People buy cats to enjoy a (cat) lifetime of companionship, friendship and pleasant coexistence. Owners, like their cats, have a right to a life without pain, fear, stress and other expressions of lack of wellbeing. They want to be able to enjoy their cat without worries. For catowners the same principle applies though; those ideals can’t always be reached and they’ll have to learn to live with that.

It’s slightly harder to form an image of the interests of society. In fact “society” doesn’t really exist. More accurate would be the description of a collective of individuals, who for a part have a positive outlook on cats, for a part are neutral towards cats, and for a small part have a negative attitude towards cats. And all these individuals with their own relation to cats, have the right to a sense of wellbeing. This is only limited by the notion that one shouldn’t have to live in a state of lack of wellbeing to ensure someone else’s wellbeing. Compromises come into play here. Especially those with a negative attitude towards cats are the ones that set the standards as to what society may expect of a cat. It should be very clear that nobody should experience hinder by the cats we breed or keep. But the definition of “hinder” is very much set by the individuals who get something to do with our cats. This makes it impossible to set manageable criteria for this. We can only go by the set of rules we people tend to go by when we try to be “social”, when we try to coexist in harmony with the people in our environment.

Finally, we also have the interests of the breeder. Breeders are the ones that actually give shape to the striving to conserve a breed. They are the ones who watch out for the preservation of the typical appearance and temperament of the breed so it will keep on existing in the future. They work hard to preserve a small piece of human cultural history. They are also the ones that have to make sure all wishes and demands, of all the parties that have interests in this, are met.
And on top of that, they have a few wishes of their own. They don’t just want to preserve their breed, they also want to improve it. Breeding the most beautiful, outstanding or most typical examples of the breed is a quest for honor and reputation. The results of their breeding are measured and compared at exhibitions and the outcome will provide the motivation and inspiration to continue improving. Obviously, this goal is added to the demands breeders share with others; the cats must possess good health and proper (social) behavior.

Breeding objective
Thankfully, the wishes and demands of parties with interests match almost completely. All of them want “health” and “wellbeing” for cats. If so, then in our breeding those are the aspects that should have top priority. In the end there might be only one aspect on which opinions may differ; where the average kittenbuyer is on top of the world with “just any cat that belongs to a certain breed”, the breeder will look for an even better representative of that breed.

When formulating our breeding goals and objectives, we have to start from the main objectives that apply to every breed; we want to preserve and improve the breed. On this, we have to note that our objectives are somewhat contradictory. Anyone who tries to improve (change) a breed, is clearly doing concessions on the part of the conservation of that breed. The only way to get around is, is to agree on what exactly we want to preserve, and which aspects we want to improve (change). The discussion will undoubtedly narrow down to the question which traits of the breed are already satisfactory typical for it (and so only need to be preserved) and which traits can (or have to) be altered.

Conservation
Before we can get to conservation, we first have to get clear what exactly we want to preserve. A breed is made up out of a group of individuals who, together, form (possess) the genepool of that breed. By establishing certain combinations through mating, this genepool is passed on from every generation to the next. When we want to preserve a breed, we have to make sure that the genepool is preserved.
There is only one way to preserve a breed’s genepool; we have to select our breeding animals from a wide range of layers of the breed, in such a way, that as many genes as possible are represented in this sample, so that all of these individuals together can pass their genetic inheritance to the next generation. We’ll have to choose the cats that represent the breed in the widest possible sense from every generation, so that the greatest diversity of genes is passed on to the next.

In breeding practice this principle is being ignored on a big scale. Breeders tend to select the smallest possible group of “exquisite animals” that will be used to build the next generation. Through this process a big part of genetic diversity is lost with every generation.
This breeding policy has some rather nasty consequences. We can witness the genepool shrinking and inbreeding levels rising. As the inbreeding levels rise, the vitality of the breed deteriorates. The animals become more sensitive to external influences; they get sick quicker, more often and more seriously and the percentage of nervous, anxious animals rises. Almost without exception we can see the shortening of the average lifespan when the inbreeding levels rise. Fertility decreases because errors take place in every stage of the breeding process. Queens more often don’t get pregnant when being bred, the number of fertile eggs decreases, the litter sizes are smaller and more young kittens don’t make it.
The most dramatic result of inbreeding that can be observed in the short term, is the explosive increase of genetic defects and malfunctions. In natural populations, we express the frequency of genetic defects in promilles, in inbred breeds we are talking percentages, sometimes even in the dozens.

When we hold these effects against our objectives, we can draw two conclusions; We are not being true to our objective of preserving, and we are causing a situation where the health and wellbeing of our cats are violated. Even though we might mean well by them, the means totally defy the cause here.

Improvement
When breeders speak about “improvement”, soon all sorts of insights on how to improve the exterior are brought to the table. The cats could become even more gorgeous, even stronger in type. People who are familiar with the raising of a certain breed, can effortlessly indicate the aspects that could be improved upon. The question is though, to what extend this should be prioritized in our selection programs. It seems like the further development of certain traits should be at the bottom of our list when breeding and selecting, rather than at the top.

When we discussed the interests, we saw that the “wellbeing of cats” is the central theme for all the parties involved. But “wellbeing” is another one of these terms that we really don’t have a definition for. In most real-life cases we tend to be able to assess whether a lack of wellbeing is present. However, since we can’t measure wellbeing it’s impossible to involve “the level of wellbeing” as a trait we select for in our breeding programs. Because obviously, wellbeing isn’t just defined as “not sick” or “not stressed”. When selecting for wellbeing we have to use an indirect approach. With every trait we have to wonder if it contributes to wellbeing in the current form, or possibly more so in an improved form, or if in fact it will decrease wellbeing. In practice this means that most selection choices for wellbeing will result in the exclusion of individuals that have or inherit unwanted traits (traits which affect wellbeing in a negative way).

Breeding policy
In the current practice of pedigreed cat breeding “positive selection” is being applied. We choose the best cats in the breed en use those for breeding practices. This means we have a really small sample of the genetic material the parental generation consists of, we just use “the best” couple of percents of the population and rule out 90 percent or more. The meaning of the attributes “good”, “better” and “best” are defined by the criteria that are being handled during this selection. This means choices are based upon the evaluation of the exterior for the most part.
The terms “good”, “better” and “best” do not provide us with any information on what would be best for the breed in the genetic sense. The group of individuals used for breeding will often be closely related and most likely will not be an accurate reflection of all the genetic material that is present in the breed. Generation after generation genetical material is lost and as generations pass we will start to see the negative impact of this to increasing degrees.

If we want to put a halt to this process of loss of genetic diversity, increasing levels of inbreeding and the decline of the average wellbeing of the breed, we will have to change our ways when it comes to breeding and selection methods. This is only possible when breeders come to certain agreements on this. In principle, there are two ways to go about this.

What we should do regardless, is switch to “negative selection”. We only exclude animals from breeding that truly deviate from the breed’s appearance as laid down in the breed standard. Next, we rule out all individuals that have problems with their wellbeing, for which we can reasonably suspect a genetic cause. This way, we are left with a group of animals that are in principle suitable for breeding. Within the remaining group we then designate the breeding animals. Animals from all sections of the breed must be included in this, so that they are an accurate sample of the genetic material of the breed.

In breeds that are (genetically) small and/or relatively severely inbred and/or already suffering negative effects in terms of wellbeing, we have to use a reversed approach. Here, we cannot afford to lose anymore origins (lines) and we are forced to keep breeding stock from every “family”. This is where we use “familyselection”. The first priority when using familyselection, is to obtain the best possible sample of the genetic material present in the breed. It’s clear that we can’t lose any more genetic diversity. We will select the best animals from those families, even if those don’t completely meet up to our requirements. When using this type of selection, every once in a while (or often) we’ll have to make concessions regarding our selection criteria. When commencing this might seem to be a very unattractive method of breeding and applying selection. We have to realize though that with every following generation we’ll get a little bit closer to our ideals, and step by step our selection can become more strict. Moreover, continuation of the current breeding- and selectionmethod will lead to a situation where the problems with health and wellbeing increase faster than we can solve them.

The part played by registries and breed clubs
The external beauty of the individual cat plays a vital role within pedigreed cat breeding. It’s the starting point for most breeders. They are fascinated by the exterior and appearance of “their breed” and decide they want to contribute to it. There’s nothing wrong with that, on the contrary; it’s because of all these breeders that a multitude of breeds were able to survive the test of time and not get lost in the increasingly equalizing society we live in today. Breeds represent a unique piece of the human cultural history, and are worth being preserved.

The problems with health and well-being that we observe within many breeds are mainly the result of individualism within the fancy. Breeders make their choices within their lines and for their own catteries, and in most cases one can’t find anything wrong with them. However, when a collective plan for the maintenance of the population as a whole lacks, the result of all the individual choices added up often doesn’t turn out to be that good. This is where a problem lies, not just for purebred cats, but also for other companion animals that are bred as a hobby.

If we want to change this situation, breeders must become willing to set up a general breeding policy with their association or registry. Breeders will have to realize that some problems are out of their control as long as they are trying to handle them on their own. All breeders of a breed combined maintain the genepool of that breed. Each and every one of these breeders is completely and utterly dependant on the breeding policies of all the others. Setting up such a cooperation wouldn’t be about accomplishing a centrally controlled breeding policy; it would be about agreeing on a set of rules and guidelines together, that are in the interest of the breed. Obviously, this will lead to some restrictions here and there, but this doesn’t mean the individual freedom of the breeder is at stake. There would still be room for breeders to fixate certain characteristics within their lines and to strive for their own ideals.

If we succeed at changing our breeding and selection policies, if we succeed at slowing down or even stopping the further loss of genetic diversity within the breed, then we will have made our first big accomplishment in favor of the breed. We will have accomplished putting a stop to further degeneration of health and wellbeing. Vitality will no longer deteriorate and no new explosions of genetic defects will appear. Breeders will be able to take their time to select against the defects that have become breed related issues, without being constantly surprised by new problems arising.

The ball is in the breeders’ court; they are the ones who hold the key to the future of their breed.