Why is cat breeding bad? Is it bad? Are breeders bad?

Stunning flame coloured Maine Coon. Photo:  Катерина Силантьева. Bred in Russia. What are the ethical standards like in Russia? Any different to anywhere else? 

This is a provocative question and a statement that implies that all cat breeders are bad people. This is incorrect and unfair. It is generalizing far too much. Breeders including Maine Coon cat breeders are not bad people. If you met one - usually a middle-aged lady - you'd probably like them and get on just fine. They are just people who normally don't see the problem with cat breeding in terms of the following two overarching issues:

1. When you breed an individual cat such as a glorious Maine Coon kitten which will be bought by somebody, in effect you take away the possibility of adoption of one rescue cat in one shelter somewhere. That is somewhat theoretical but the equation is obvious. A person adopting a Maine Coon cat might have adopted a beautiful, large rescue cat with medium-length hair instead, that's been as a rescue center for a couple of weeks and who desperately needs a loving home. And let's not forget that many rescue cats are euthanised at shelters because nobody wants them. When a breeder creates an individual purebred cat the consequence might be the loss of the life of one shelter cat.
2. Secondly, all cat breeding is selective breeding or breeding by artificial selection a.k.a. inbreeding to a certain extent at least. Breeders have to inbreed in order to fix the appearance of the cat in line with the breed standard. This can lead to serious, inherited and chronic health issues. For example, breeders cannot outcross their Maine Coon cats to a non-Maine Coon or random bread cat under the cat association breed standard rules. This, I presume, is to avoid breeders diluting the perfect Maine Coon appearance with genes from a non-Maine Coon. It is reminiscent of racism in humans in the dark days of the 1940s and which still occurs today when some racist people don't want to dilute the genes of a certain race of people with the race of another people.

It's okay to think like that when it comes to cat breeding but it is certainly grotesquely inappropriate to think like that in terms of humans. That, possibly, is a third point worth mentioning.

The positives

Set against these negatives, the Maine Coon cat brings an enormous amount of pleasure to many people. Their physical size and beauty combined with their sweet, normally calm and placid character make them great companions. They've cheered up the lives of probably millions of caregivers. So, Maine Coon cats and other cat breeds bring a lot of pleasure to millions of people.

Humans or cats?

It depends how you look at the issue. If you look at it through the eyes of people and conveniently brush under the carpet points number 1 and 2 above, there is nothing wrong and nothing bad about breeding cats or the people who breed them.

But if you are concerned about animal welfare in general and cat welfare specifically, it is difficult to ignore the obvious consequences of creating beautiful cats when there are unwanted cats on the sidelines, forgotten and living very difficult lives in noisy shelters in cages where the volunteers and workers are doing their best to find a new home.

PETA

PETA has a say in this. They would probably ban cat breeding entirely if they had the power to do so. Their motto, at the head of their website is as you might know: "ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abusing any other way".

Well, domestic cats keep us company and they entertain us. You wonder if this motto includes domestic cats. It quite possibly does and PETA like to set ideals. They reach for the stars so to speak knowing that they will not achieve their goal but achieve a goal nonetheless.

I like to refer to PETA because I feel that they are the conscience of people. A lot of people hate them perhaps because they don't want to be reminded of the immoral things that they do to animals. Note: Nathan Winograd, America's expert of animal shelters, would strongly object to the suggestion that PETA are the conscience of people regarding animal welfare.

Regarding breeding, they say that there is no such thing as a responsible breeder. This is their statement as to why there is no such thing as a responsible breeder:

As long as dogs and cats continue to suffer from overpopulation, homelessness, and abandonment, no breeding can be considered "responsible."

They argue quite rightly that all breeders add to the overpopulation crisis.

Selective breeding

To refer once again to selective breeding: the nature of the cat fancy dictates that cat breeders tend to want to breed to an extreme. This means that they tend to breed appearance features which are extreme in nature to make the animal more attractive and in demand with the buying public and with the cat fancy in general and cat show judges. 

Although regarding the Maine Coon, it is important that the Maine Coon cat is balanced in appearance without exaggerations to certain features which is a rule that is breached quite often by some Maine Coon breeders.

But the point is this: if you breed to extreme you can end up breeding animals which are inherently unhealthy and this of course applies to cats and dogs. Regarding cats there is the obvious purebred cat the Persian with a flat face and regarding dogs there is the obvious flat-faced French bulldog or the elongated dachshund that is often too low to the ground because the legs are too short. They can suffer from back problems as well for obvious reasons. There are many other examples of inbreeding for appearance leading to health problems which is another reason why cat breeding can be bad.

PETA state that the only compassionate and ethical option is to adopt a cat from a shelter if you are in a position to adopt a cat companion. You will lose the pleasure of living with a wonderful Maine Coon cat but you will gain the pleasure of quite possibly saving the life of an unwanted cat who is equally beautiful if you remove the veil of conventional beauty and look at the character. This will happen quite quickly.

I am not in any way denigrating the Maine Coon cat in his article. I love them like anybody else. I am just writing an article from the other point of view to create a balanced argument. There is still a place, in my mind, for a Maine Coon cat but I do struggle ethically speaking with all cat breeding.