It was the mid-1970s, and famed feline judge and breeder Adam Furkowski was showing what would become one of the country's top cats, a flawless cameo tabby. Purebred to perfection.

As Atlanta-area breeder Ande DeGeer tells it, a woman approached Furkowski and remarked that the tabby looked just like her cat at home. The breeder indulged the woman's whimsy and allowed her to show him a photo of her cat, a stray she had adopted. "You could have knocked him over with a feather," DeGeer said. "It was a clone of his cat."

That is the allure of the American Shorthair. With the look and instinct of its street-wise extended family and the consistency and control of a pedigree, many consider it a "cat's cat."

"They just have a fantastic personality," said DeGeer, president of the National American Shorthair Club, which has 170 members worldwide. "They are intelligent. They're very friendly, but they aren't cloying. They don't need attention all the time."

Born in the USA
Its patriotic name is no misnomer. It is one of only two completely native breeds to the United States, the other being the Maine Coon. Although some claim to trace the breed's ancestors as far back as the Pilgrims, it's highly unlikely.

"There are no references to cats aboard the Mayflower," said Carolyn Travers, research manager at the Plimouth Plantation in Plymouth, Mass., "although it was quite a common practice for rodent control."

Cats certainly came over on later voyages from England. The two earliest references to cats in the New World are by early settlers William Wood in 1634 and Thomas Morton in 1637, who describe arming themselves with cats to ward off hungry squirrels stealing corn.

Wrote Morton in his book "New English Canaan" of one squirrel: "Hee haunts our howses and will rob us of our Corne, but the Catt many times payes him the price of his presumption."

For generations to come, these ace mousers would be put to work in fields and on farms. Their coats would adapt to the cold and wet climate by becoming thicker and more resilient. These American cats would end up growing larger than their European counterparts.

At the dawn of the 20th century, fearing that the purity of the breed would be lost as longhaired cats and imports became all the rage, breeders chose a select few cats to create the standard for what would be known as the Domestic Shorthair.

The first litter was born in 1904 as a cross with British Shorthairs. A black smoke named Buster Brown became the first registered American cat. A silver tabby was crowned Cat of the Year in 1965, and the breed name was changed the following year to American Shorthair.

A Varied Breed
The American Shorthair has been in the top 10 of total pedigreed breeds since records have been kept. In 2002, the breed tied with the Tonkinese for eighth place in the Cat Fanciers' Association rankings; in The International Cat Association, just 74 American Shorthairs were registered from January to October last year, representing less than 1 percent of all new worldwide registrations and just over 1 percent of all cats in the association.

Many people are drawn to the breed because it is relatable to the cats they grew up with. "It's a man's cat. They don't look fancy froufrou," DeGeer said.

"They look like a cat," said Alfred Jeslee of Hacienda Heights, Calif., whose Sumalee Cattery has bred American Shorthairs for 26 years. "They're beautiful. They're very photogenic."

American Shorthairs come in 80-plus colors and designs - second only to Persians in variety - giving cat fanciers an enormous selection, from a single inky wash to splashes of color in the calico and tortoiseshell.

"We're the Baskin-Robbins of cats," DeGeer said. "We come in every flavor."

With distinctive black markings against a silver background, the silver tabby is easily the most popular - and most recognizable. Its look nearly identically reproduces in a mackeral pattern as small stripes, like fish scales, or in a classic pattern as a bull's-eye on the sides, butterfly wings across the shoulders, an "M" on the forehead, a necklace across the chest and bracelets on the paws. Explained Jeslee, "That's the jewelry of a cat."

Inevitably with so many types, some are starting to dwindle in numbers, especially some shaded types, whose coats are white against the body and colored at the tips.

As their numbers have dropped, inbreeding has risen, said DeGeer. "The whole cat just changed a little bit."

Terri Callahan of Calla Cattery in the Atlanta area has been breeding American Shorthairs for seven years. She plans to enter the world of the shaded silver shortly. There are only a handful of breeders in the United States specializing in that type, she said.

It's All in the Genes
Breeders describe American Shorthairs as sturdy and healthy with long lifespans thanks to their purity as a breed. Some veterinarians report a higher incidence of heart and kidney disease, though.

Leslie Lyons, Ph.D, a feline geneticist at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, said the modifications in the breed are visible in the head, which is smaller than its forebears. She suspects some Persian blood may have been added somewhere along the line.

"A lot of these breeders, they try to get a very short muzzle and very large eyes," Lyons said. "It's sort of a baby-doll look."

Callahan credits the breed with intelligence and instinct - especially for mothering. "They're healthy. Mothers are great mothers. The babies do really well and they thrive," she said.

She finds they are easy to breed, although getting show cats is something of a "genetic crapshoot." Out of every three litters, there might only be one. Still, she has no trouble finding homes for the rest, especially her retired breeders.

"But boy," Callahan said, "it's tough to let them go. They just get their way into your heart."

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