There is a quiet shift happening in cat breeding that is rarely acknowledged openly, yet it is visible everywhere once you start looking closely enough.
You see it in conversations around cages at shows, in private messages between breeders and buyers, in the sudden appearance of “new” colours that seem to come out of nowhere, and in the simple, almost casual question that appears more and more often:
“Do you have something unusual?”
Breeds are no longer changing only because of selection, knowledge, or long-term vision.
They are changing because of demand.
Not suddenly, not dramatically, and not in a way that would trigger immediate alarm — but gradually, through countless small decisions, each of them seemingly harmless on its own, yet together forming a direction that is no longer guided by the original identity of the breed, but by what the market finds interesting, new, or profitable.
And that difference matters far more than we are comfortable admitting.
The growing influence of external pressures on breeding decisions was already examined in When “Bigger”, “Shorter”, and “More Extreme” Becomes Dangerous: Why We Must Stop Redesigning Cat Breeds, while the structural risks of weak entry control were discussed in The Novice Class: Protection of Breeds – or a Door We No Longer Control? This essay looks at what happens when those pressures are no longer exceptional, but become part of the market itself.
From Selection to Demand
For most of the history of organized breeding, change was slow, and more importantly, it was intentional. Breeders worked within a framework defined by standards, by a shared understanding of type, and by a long-term perspective that extended far beyond individual litters or short-term success. Even when disagreements existed — and they always did — there was still a relatively clear boundary between what belonged to a breed and what did not.
This essay is also available as a short video lecture. The full written version continues below.
Today, that boundary is becoming increasingly flexible, and not because standards have fundamentally changed, but because the forces acting around them have.
A breeder no longer operates only within the circle of colleagues, judges, and associations. There is now a second, equally powerful environment — the market. Social media visibility, buyer expectations, trends, and the simple fact that something “new” can be sold more easily than something familiar all play a role in shaping decisions.
And unlike standards, the market does not reward consistency.
It rewards novelty — often without asking what that novelty actually means for the breed itself.
How the Market Shapes Decisions
This influence rarely appears as a conscious decision to “change a breed.” No one sits down and decides to redesign a Maine Coon, a British Shorthair, or a Siberian.
It happens in much smaller, more practical choices, which is precisely why it is so difficult to recognize in time.
A slightly unusual colour is kept instead of excluded. A rare expression is explored further instead of questioned. A combination that attracts attention is repeated because it generates interest, inquiries, and ultimately, sales.
Over time, these decisions accumulate and begin to create their own logic.
What begins as an exception slowly becomes an option. What is an option becomes desirable. And what is desirable eventually starts to feel normal — not because it was ever critically evaluated and accepted, but because it was seen often enough to lose its sense of exception.
At no single point does it look like a radical shift.
But when you step back, the direction is no longer difficult to see.
When Examples Stop Being Exceptions
We can already observe this across multiple breeds, and the pattern is remarkably consistent once you stop looking at each case in isolation.
In Maine Coons, the growing fascination with unusual colour expressions has led to the promotion of what is often referred to as “high smoke” — a visually striking effect that, in reality, blurs the line between smoke, shaded, and shell, creating something that no longer fits cleanly into the genetic or descriptive framework those categories were built upon. Alongside this, entirely new marketing terms such as “Phoenix” colours appear, not as established genetic realities, but as products of a demand for something that sounds rare and different.
In British Shorthairs, the emergence of flaxen gold, linked to mutations on the CORIN gene, illustrates a similar dynamic. A mutation becomes a feature, the feature becomes desirable, and desirability quickly turns into a selling argument — often long before there is a broader agreement on what that mutation represents within the breed’s identity.
The Russian Blue, historically one of the most strictly defined breeds, is now seen in additional colours, with some associations even exploring pointed variants. Each step can be explained on its own. Taken together, they lead to a much less comfortable question: how far can expansion go before the breed stops being what it was originally meant to be?
In Abyssinians, the introduction of the red gene has led to tortie variants that would once have been considered entirely outside the breed’s framework. In Siberians, the combination of sunshine mutations with silver produces so-called bimetallic cats — visually impressive, highly marketable, but again moving the breed into territory that was never part of its original concept.
And then there are the more explicit combinations: Elf cats, combining hairlessness with curled ears, or Dwelf cats when short legs are added to the same equation. Even structured breeds such as the Toyger are occasionally seen with traits like curled ears — not because they belong there, but because the possibility exists and the market reacts to it.
Individually, every one of these examples can be justified.
That is precisely the problem.
The Illusion of Harmless Innovation
It is tempting to describe all of this as progress. After all, variation exists in nature, mutations occur, and breeding has always involved selection and development.
And it is true — not every new colour, not every mutation, and not every experiment represents a problem.
The difficulty lies elsewhere.
Because what is happening here is not a series of isolated innovations, but a shift in the underlying logic of selection.
The question is no longer only “does this belong to the breed?”
It is increasingly replaced by “will this attract attention?”
That is a fundamentally different criterion — and one that does not require long-term thinking, genetic stability, or respect for the original concept of the breed.
It only requires demand.
When Identity Becomes Secondary
The real consequence of this shift is not the appearance of a specific colour, mutation, or combination.
It is the gradual erosion of breed identity.
Every breed is, at its core, a concept — a carefully built balance of structure, type, coat, expression, and overall impression that creates something recognizable and consistent across generations. That identity is not static, but it is not infinitely flexible either.
When selection begins to follow demand rather than purpose, identity does not disappear overnight.
It becomes negotiable.
And once identity becomes negotiable, it does not take long before it becomes secondary — not because anyone openly decides to abandon it, but because it is slowly overshadowed by what is easier to sell, easier to promote, and easier to make visible in an environment where attention has become a currency.
At that point, the breed still exists in name.
But what it represents is no longer entirely clear.
The Role of Buyers — The Part We Prefer Not to Discuss
There is another layer to this that is even less comfortable to address, and it is often avoided for a simple reason: it is not limited to breeders or organizations.
Buyers are not passive observers.
They are active participants in shaping direction.
When the market consistently rewards what is described as “rare,” “exclusive,” or “never seen before,” it creates a predictable outcome. Breeders respond. Not because they necessarily want to change a breed, but because responding to demand is part of surviving within the system.
At the same time, a parallel dynamic develops.
Buyers who are primarily motivated by price begin to look for shortcuts, and one of the most common is the request for kittens “without papers.” The reasoning appears practical — lower cost, fewer formalities — but the consequences reach far beyond a single transaction.
Entire litters remain unregistered.
Pedigree tracking becomes incomplete.
Selection loses its structure.
And what looks like a small compromise becomes a direct risk to the integrity of breeding as a whole.
It is difficult to speak about this openly, because it challenges not only breeders, but also the people who sustain the market.
That is precisely why it needs to be said.
A System That Changes Without Deciding To
What makes this entire process particularly complex is that it does not feel like a decision.
There is no formal vote. No official declaration. No moment where someone stands up and says: “From now on, this is what the breed will be.”
And yet, over time, the outcome is exactly that.
A system can change completely without ever deciding to change — simply by following what is easiest, most visible, and most immediately rewarded.
A Question Worth Asking — Before It Is Too Late
It would be easy to conclude that responsibility lies with breeders, or judges, or organizations, and to stop there.
It does not.
This direction is created in the space between all of them.
As long as novelty is rewarded more than consistency, and as long as demand is allowed to define value without being questioned, the outcome will not be different.
The question, therefore, is not whether new colours, traits, or combinations should exist.
Some will, inevitably.
The real question is much simpler — and much more uncomfortable.
Are we still developing breeds?
Or are we redesigning them — slowly, collectively, and without ever admitting that this is what we are doing?
And if the direction is no longer guided by what a breed is, but by what the market wants it to become —
who, exactly, is in control?
Written by Trpimir-Frane Sulić
President of Felis Croatia (KMFC)
WCF Judge
