12/09/2022
Our friends visited the historical homeland of the Tailless. Kurilian bobtail. How do these cats live in their historical homeland
"Moustache, paws and tail - these are my documents" This is exactly what the famous cat Matroskin said. Did you know that there are cats without tails? Rather, their tails look like a fur pompom, because they are very short and twisted in a spiral.
Meet the Kuril Bobtail: The birthplace of the Kuril Bobtail is the islands of Kunashir and Iturup. It was from here that in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, Moscow felinologists T. Bocharova (chairman of the Moscow club of cat lovers of the Talisman club) and her associates brought the first representatives of this breed to the mainland. The first breed standard was adopted by the Soviet Felinological Federation (SFF) in October 1991, the last international standard - in 2001. This breed was recognized by international felinological organizations in 1994.
Extracts from the breed standard (WCF)
The standard allows two variations in coat length:
Short-haired (KBS) - the coat is short, lying, with a developed guard hair, a dense guard hair and a moderately developed undercoat.
Semi-longhaired (KBL) - poorly developed outer coat, abundant outer and brindle hair and dense undercoat. The full development of the "collar", "pants" and tassels on the ears is desirable
The body is compact, muscular, with a slightly arched back and a raised croup. The limbs are strong, the hind legs are longer than the front ones, the paws are round. The tail should have creases and bends, one or more knots in various combinations. The length without taking into account the coat is from 3 to 8 cm. The hair on the tail is longer than on the rest of the body, and forms a pompom.
Colors: colors in any combination of chocolate, lilac, cinnamon, fawn (including tabby, bicolor, tricolor), as well as acromelanic (colorpoint) colors are not recognized. All other colors are recognized. There are several different versions about the origin of the breed. The version that the Kuril Bobtail is the fruit of the love of Japanese Bobtails and Siberians, brought to the islands by Russian sailors, is considered the most reliable version. While traveling through the South Kuriles, we, of course, could not but become interested in the local cat fauna. As it turned out, ordinary tailed and Kuril tailless cats live quite amicably here. Since the tailless gene is dominant, it is most often bobtails with tails of different variations that are born from such a union - from a completely correct pom-pom to a straight short tail, with a maximum of 1 break (yes, I caught them if possible and felt the tails, remembering my old felinological education)
And yet, for some reason, we mostly came across short-haired bobtails, although logically, in the local climate, it is much easier to survive with longer hair. For all the time I saw only two "woolen" kurbobiks.
One of the features of the Kurilian Bobtail is that they are not afraid of water, and often even like to swim. It was believed that earlier these cats caught salmon fish for food during spawning. Now, of course, this is hardly possible (there are less and less fish in the rivers, and cats live in the village, and do not walk in the forests), but the hunting instinct in kurbobiks is very well developed and this should be taken into account when deciding to get yourself a kitten.
The most famous Kurilian bobtail on the islands is rightfully the cat Kesha, who lives on Iturup in the hot springs "Vannochki". This red-haired handsome man with a very regular marble pattern on his shiny sides has already become the hallmark of the island. His photograph can be seen on calendars and advertising posters. They say that they even tried to steal it several times, but to no avail.
Unlike the mainland, where a Kurilian Bobtail kitten costs quite decent money, on the islands this "money" runs along the street, often not needed by anyone. Unfortunately, the problem of stray cats here is quite acute, because often a cute tailless cat is brought up by the families of military contractors who, at the end of the contract, leave the animal on the island when they leave for the mainland, in fact, they simply throw it away. However, local residents do not let the cats die by feeding them, or even letting them live. Periodically, tourists who come to the South Kuriles, fascinated by the local cat fauna, take a kitten home with them. It is not very difficult to do this, you just need to buy a plastic carrier, get a certificate from a local veterinary clinic and pay for the transportation of the animal by plane and ship. Despite the fact that it is believed that the Kurilian Bobtail is more suitable for life on the street (in a private house), they also feel great in city apartments.
