In the spring of 1985, Carol Ann Brewer purchased a polydactyl cat near Mount Baker, Washington, in the Cascade Mountains. This male had a short bobbed tail. In January 1986, she rescued another male cat. This cat was very large, had a bobbed tail, and was reported to have been sired by a bobcat. While this cat was starving, it still weighed 17 pounds, and was so tall it reached up to Brewer’s kne
es. Shortly after she had acquired this large male, it mated with a brown spotted female cat next door.[2] In April 1986, a litter was born from this mating. Brewer eventually kept one of the kittens, named "Pixie", and after a year started a breeding program with Pixie as the foundation cat. Over the next couple of years, Brewer introduced into her program 23 cats from around the Cascade range that were believed by her to be born from naturally occurring matings between bobcats and domestic cats. She coined the term "Legend Cat" to refer to such cats and has since registered a trademark in the U.S. to limit the term to describe permitted outcrosses used in her breeding program.[3] At the same time, other breeders in the U.S. were working with distinctly wild looking barn cats and collaborated with Brewer to establish a broad genetic base and to develop the foundation of today's Pixie-bob. Led by Brewer, they succeeded in registering their new breed with The International Cat Association (TICA) and eventually the American Cat Fancier's Association (ACFA). The Pixie-bob was accepted into the "Exhibition" category by TICA in 1993, promoted to "New Breed and Color" status in 1996 and eventually gained Championship status in 1998. The Pixie-bob was classified by TICA initially as a "Native New Breed", defined as "A new breed which has been identified through selection of phenotypically similar individuals from a naturally occurring population indigenous to a particular geographic region" but it is now classified as a "Newer Natural/Regional Breed" also known as NNRB.
