# Norweigan Forest Cat opinions



## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

I am aware that this will likely never be conclusive...just interesting for me. Anyway, an early post about my cat possibly being part Maine **** can be disregarded. Now that I've examined the Norweigan Forest Cat, I think both Guinny and Merlin are so similar it would be odd if they weren't part NFC. Anyway, the reason why I am so curious is because I read somewhere (NOT sure how accurate it is) that if a cat has black on the roof of its mouth, it is a sign that it likely has a purebred in its recent ancestry. Guinny has this, so I was looking into a few just to see what she resembled. Anyway, tell me what you think of the pictures below! 

Here is a torbie Norweigan Forest Cat:










Here is Guinny, my torbie "domestic medium hair":










and Guinny again:










Here is Guinny next to her adopted sister, a domestic short hair calico. Emmy is only a week younger than Guinny and Merlin but MUCH smaller:











Here is an orange Norweigan Forest Cat:










And here is Merlin in a similar position:










Another orange NFC:










Merlin:


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## EmmaFay (Nov 27, 2012)

I'd never heard that about black mouths showing blue blood, but it sounds neat :] I'm going to have to pry open my own Moggie's mouth to take a look...I'm sure he has a dash of Siberian in him, somewhere down the line!

As for your cats, Norwegian Forest Cats have a very distinctive flat profiles. I couldn't really tell from the photos...do your guys have flat noses? If they do, it's probably a sure sign of Wegie ancestry


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## 3furbabies (Dec 7, 2011)

I've heard of the black spot in the mouth thing. My two DSH girls both have black splotches on the roof of their mouths. My purebred ragdoll does not. Not sure if its a coincidence or not.


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

Any cat can look like a Norwegian Forest Cat. Just because a cat has a particular coat pattern (Norwegians can come in a variety of patterns) and long hair doesn't mean anything... sorry. The color of your cats are quite common and a great deal of cats are long haired. Only 3% of cats are purebreds, a cat can and often does give birth to kittens that look nothing like it... unlike dogs, where breed history is more apparent, in cats they can look like anything and it doesn't mean anything. Sort of like, black cats are a dime a dozen, just about every single one of them aren't Bombay cats and have had nothing to do with the breed of Bombay cats, black is a color that occurs naturally and frequently in the cat population; black coats aren't exclusive to any one breed.

You do have very beautiful cats, though.


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## Jakiepoo (Jan 5, 2013)

Your cats are very gorgeous long hairs! Merlin especially looks like he might have that lineage, but without a pedigree, you'll never know.

And my Jakie has a black splotch on the roof of his mouth, and he's as DSH as you can get, pretty, but no where near purebred, so it's probably just some sort of myth, neat though!


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Carmel said:


> Any cat can look like a Norwegian Forest Cat. Just because a cat has a particular coat pattern (Norwegians can come in a variety of patterns) and long hair doesn't mean anything... sorry. The color of your cats are quite common and a great deal of cats are long haired. Only 3% of cats are purebreds, a cat can and often does give birth to kittens that look nothing like it... unlike dogs, where breed history is more apparent, in cats they can look like anything and it doesn't mean anything. Sort of like, black cats are a dime a dozen, just about every single one of them aren't Bombay cats and have had nothing to do with the breed of Bombay cats, black is a color that occurs naturally and frequently in the cat population; black coats aren't exclusive to any one breed.
> 
> You do have very beautiful cats, though.


Agreed. And that thing about black spots on the roof of the mouth meaning a cat is purebred is just a bunch of hooey.


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Crap. I thought Cleo was a panther.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

She is...Maggie is too...it's all about the attitude! :lol:


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

Carmel said:


> Any cat can look like a Norwegian Forest Cat. Just because a cat has a particular coat pattern (Norwegians can come in a variety of patterns) and long hair doesn't mean anything... sorry.


I don't believe I said it had anything to do with their coat patterns. That must have been a misunderstanding. I know they come in almost every colour; it just seemed to make sense to post ones that happened to have the same colour as mine to show the similarities.



> You do have very beautiful cats, though.


Thank you!


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

doodlebug said:


> Agreed. And that thing about black spots on the roof of the mouth meaning a cat is purebred is just a bunch of hooey.


Is there some article that says its a bunch of hooey? Like I said, I don't know if it's accurate, but I also don't know that it's inaccurate either.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

Jakiepoo said:


> Your cats are very gorgeous long hairs! Merlin especially looks like he might have that lineage, but without a pedigree, you'll never know.


Thank you! I figured I would never know for sure but the similarities are very strong. I HIGHLY doubt they are purebred because their supposed siblings are DSH, but that certainly doesn't exclude them from having some ancestry of this type of kitty which would be neat.



> And my Jakie has a black splotch on the roof of his mouth, and he's as DSH as you can get, pretty, but no where near purebred, so it's probably just some sort of myth, neat though!


Yeah, I suspected it probably was. I was certainly shocked when I first seen Guinny's mouth though (during a particularly large yawn). I didn't know that was possible.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

EmmaFay said:


> As for your cats, Norwegian Forest Cats have a very distinctive flat profiles. I couldn't really tell from the photos...do your guys have flat noses? If they do, it's probably a sure sign of Wegie ancestry
> 
> 
> > Hmm...that was not something I came across during my readings. Very interesting. That profile looks a lot like Merlin and Guinny too I think; I will have to go take a closer look at them now.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

EmmaFay,

I had to do a google search on profiles to see exactly what you meant. I found a site that showed the differences between several breeds. I'll post a couple of pictures. They might just be fluffy domestic medium hairs--like I said, I doubt they are purebreds, but not excluding NFC ancestry.

Guinny:




















Merlin:


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## my5kitties (Sep 13, 2005)

marie73 said:


> Crap. I thought Cleo was a panther.





doodlebug said:


> She is...Maggie is too...it's all about the attitude! :lol:


Midnight is a pygmy panther, but has the attitude of a full size panther. Such the diva. :lol:


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## Marcia (Dec 26, 2010)

My Maddie looks just like the below example of a Norwegian Forest cat! This is a Cat Fancier premier cat. Maddie is almost a carbon copy. She does not shed much at all, never mats, and loves the cold. She is quite stunning, really.

View attachment 7466


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Merlin_Guinevere said:


> Is there some article that says its a bunch of hooey? Like I said, I don't know if it's accurate, but I also don't know that it's inaccurate either.


Is there an article that says it's true? I'm not aware of any cat breeds that have a roof of the mouth that is black as a breed characteristic. So how could that possibly become an indicator of having a purebred in its recent ancestry? And not just a specific purebred, any purebred. Genetics doesn't work that way....

Your cats are gorgeous, but the likelihood there is any purebred in their background is slim to none.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

doodlebug said:


> Is there an article that says it's true?


I'm not sure. I'm also not the one saying it either is true or it is "hooey". The burden of proof lies with the one that says they know it is one way or the other.



> the likelihood there is any purebred in their background is slim to none.


What are you basing this on...the simple fact that they are not registered or something useful? I think all cats have a purebred somewhere in their background. Some just have them more recent than others. If my cats have NO purebreds in their background, then they can't exist.....


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

For the record:

I have NEVER said I intend on calling my cats NFCs, and I have also said that I DO think they are mixes. I STILL think they might have SOME NFC is their background though. They have many characteristics including the tail shape/length, and at least somewhat of an undercoat (they are still kittens though). Similar headshape (though perhaps not exact, but they are most likely mixed with domestics of course). Opinions are still welcome, but please remember what my intentions are, and they are not to say that my cats are definitely 100% this breed.


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## EmmaFay (Nov 27, 2012)

Guinny has such beautiful colouring. Every pattern looks better with fluff!
If you're really curious, you could try doing a dna test or something :] I'm not sure how much they cost....maybe a hundred dollars? 
They do have interesting profiles, not quite as indented as usual. Maybe that's just me seeing what I expect to see, but whatever their breed, your cats are stunners.


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## Carmel (Nov 23, 2010)

I'm trying to think of how to word this... cat breeds are very rare. Most cat breeds are not all that old and were created from random matings that produced an interesting coat and so people took it upon themselves to work on creating more or that type of cat from the hoards of the general population of cats. All purebreds started as domestics (no "breed" ancestry)... not the other way around. Therefore, as I said, a cat can look like any type of purebred an it means nothing.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Merlin_Guinevere said:


> I think all cats have a purebred somewhere in their background. Some just have them more recent than others. If my cats have NO purebreds in their background, then they can't exist.....


The world did not start off with a bunch of different purebred cats that then intermixed so much that eventually the domestic cat was created. Quite the opposite...cats evolved within their various geographical areas, adapting for the conditions in those areas. It is people who created the various breeds by taking certain cats with traits they wanted to emphasize and bred until those traits could be reproduced consistently and now call those cats purebred. So even the purebred cats trace their lineage back to indigenous cats in the area they were first bred in. So no, not all cats have purebred in their background...the vast majority do not. Purebred is due to human meddling with genetics. 

And that is why we tell people that it is very unlikely that their cat has any purebred blood. I don't know if it was on this thread or another, someone mentioned that breeders only account for about 3% of the cats in the world. The vast majority of those purebred cats are either spayed/neutered before leaving the breeder or are under contract to get it done. Then factor in that most people who pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for their cat are not inclined to allow their cat to go outside. So the chances that an unaltered purebred cat got outside and managed to breed and produce the line of cats that your cats came from is extremely small. Yes, it happens...but it's extremely rare.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

EmmaFay said:


> Guinny has such beautiful colouring. Every pattern looks better with fluff!
> If you're really curious, you could try doing a dna test or something :] I'm not sure how much they cost....maybe a hundred dollars?
> They do have interesting profiles, not quite as indented as usual. Maybe that's just me seeing what I expect to see, but whatever their breed, your cats are stunners.


Thanks!  I am really curious... but don't think I care quite enough to pay for it! lol They are both fixed anyway, so they cannot reproduce or anything. They are beeeeeauuuutiful though!


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

Carmel said:


> I'm trying to think of how to word this... cat breeds are very rare.


Yes, which is why I think mine are mixes.  The NFC breed says on its site that it is natural though....


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

doodlebug said:


> The world did not start off with a bunch of different purebred cats that then intermixed so much that eventually the domestic cat was created. Quite the opposite...cats evolved within their various geographical areas, adapting for the conditions in those areas. It is people who created the various breeds by taking certain cats with traits they wanted to emphasize and bred until those traits could be reproduced consistently and now call those cats purebred. So even the purebred cats trace their lineage back to indigenous cats in the area they were first bred in. So no, not all cats have purebred in their background...the vast majority do not. Purebred is due to human meddling with genetics.
> 
> And that is why we tell people that it is very unlikely that their cat has any purebred blood. I don't know if it was on this thread or another, someone mentioned that breeders only account for about 3% of the cats in the world. The vast majority of those purebred cats are either spayed/neutered before leaving the breeder or are under contract to get it done. Then factor in that most people who pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for their cat are not inclined to allow their cat to go outside. So the chances that an unaltered purebred cat got outside and managed to breed and produce the line of cats that your cats came from is extremely small. Yes, it happens...but it's extremely rare.


All cats did not start out as "mixes". For a mix to exist, there would need to be an intermingling of two or more breeds. Not all purebreds are unnatural either. Anyway, I know NFCs are very rare; I know my cats are mixes, but I am not excluding ANY NFC ancestry from their background which goes back thousands of years. Norweigan Forest Cats existed for at least approximately 1013 years, so one cannot exclude the possibility of my cats--that have many similar traits to NFCs--to be completely free from NFC ancestry. Whether or not they really do will never be known, and I will continue to refer to them as Domestic Medium Hairs, but that does not mean I still don't see the similarities between them and NFCs to be there.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Oy...


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## Tiliqua (Jan 22, 2013)

Merlin_Guinevere said:


> All cats did not start out as "mixes". For a mix to exist, there would need to be an intermingling of two or more breeds.


So the domestic cat started out as various pure breeds that were allowed to intermingle to create the domestic 'mixes'??

Or... various felines evolved and the domestic ones started being selected by humans for certain looks and traits found in different areas creating 'breeds'.

Breed implies human intervention and human manipulation. Species or subspecies implies naturally occurring, distinct variations. Dogs and cats have breeds, but all domestic cats are still _Felis catus_ regardless of breed. ;-)


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

A domestic cat in today's world is seen as a mix with no known and any possible ancestry. I am done with this argument....


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