The LaPerm was due to a kittens born from a spontaneous mutation in the Dalles, Oregon area in 1982. A normal house cat gave birth to a litter of six kittens and one of the kittens was born furless but then started to grow a soft curly fur after 8 weeks.
The owner, Linda Koehl, called the kitten “Curly” and Curly is now considered to be the mother of all the LaPerm cats. Curly’s temperament was also different from that of the other kittens from her litter as she was very affectionate.
Her first litter consisted of five males who were all bald as Curly at was at birth and in later litters Curly had bald kittens of both sexes. Linda had no knowledge of genetics or breeding of cats and they multiplied in a natural way and lived freely on her farm.
Gradually, however she began to bring the cats inside the house and started to address them as a breed, finding that the gene is dominant for curly hair and can be passed by both the male and the female animal.
Sometimes the cats mated outside of the Curly gene pool therefore increasing the gene pool yet offspring kept the physical characteristics of a gentle nature of the cats survived.
Linda on the advice of a friend decided to show her cats and to hear what experts had to say about them. In order to show them she needed to have a name and decided on “La Perm” from the word meaning to curl hair at a hair salon.
The CFA breed Judge Kim Everett was among the first to see Linda’s cats and encouraged her to continue to breed them and thanks to this support from Mrs. Everett and others Linda began to think about obtaining recognition of her cats as a breed.
Racial Characteristics
The wavy or curly coat is one of the most important distinguishing features compared to other cat breeds. The coat can vary from wavy to curly hair or hair that is very curly or curly and long and short haired variations are available.
The coat is relatively soft in texture, but each coat is different.
Some kittens are born hairless however most have short, wavy hair at the time of their birth. Sometimes the kittens are still completely bald when they are already two weeks old and some take up to four months before they start developing their unique coat and fur.
La Perm has three distinct desirable and different hair styles being the most desired is the wavy or curly hair, generating the abbreviation BC, Born Curled and then if the hair is not curly, but smooth, one uses the abbreviation BS, Born Straight.
The last category is the kittens that are born hairless and then develop coats in a few weeks these are determined as BB or Born Soon. The breed requires little grooming and the fur is not prone to matting.
The coat of both the long-haired and the short-haired version can vary in length and density, depending on the season and the age of the cat. Both the male and the female animals of the long-haired variant can get a full collar when they are adults.
The snout and the head of the LaPerm is triangular with a relatively wide set ears, full whiskers cheek pads and large eyes. The cat usually has quite curly whiskers, and typically weighs 3 to 5 kilos for makes and the females from 2.5 to 4 kg.
Character
La Perms are very affectionate and trusting and look for human contact; they are ideally suited to living in flats and apartments.
Breeding
Worldwide, there are not many breeders of this race, although there are some breeders in the country of USA, some in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Russia. As the race still has a very small gene pool, it is currently permissible to cross it to other breeds.
In contrast to most of the Selkirk Rex cats except for the true Rex, then it is a different gene, the gene trait for the curly coat is dominant in the La Perm.
Already in the first generation with the outcross breeding of the house cat or the out breeding to a different breed line there is a 50% chance of Curly pelt offspring. There is still much work to do to develop the breed and the cats are quite large when born.
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