Its grandiose orange or copper eyes produce an exceptional contrast to its magnificent mantle, the main feature of this Variety of Persian, endows it with great luxury and mysterious. Its lustrous and heavy calm character, as well as its sociable personality, makes it the ideal cat to live in a home.
Although it is not the first time that we talk about the origins of the Persian cat, it is not worth counting them and thus placing our object of this article, the black Persian cat. In the seventeenth century, the purebred Persian cat introduced it to Europe through Italy, Petro Del Valle, a Roman patrician who began in 1614 a long journey through Asia Minor and Persia, among other places in the East. In the Persian province of he was admired for the beauty of local cats.
In fact there are letters addressed to his friend Mario Chicano in which he describes with
Every detail of what he saw on the travels; in them stand out the descriptions of the Persian cat of primitive type, robust body, long and thick hair and dark gray color.
Then, in the eighteenth century, the first description of a cat of Persian-like characteristics would be made by Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon celebrates French naturalist count. Count Buffon described them as follows:
But it was in 1871 that Harrison Weir would organize the first exhibition of breed cats at London's Crystal Palace. This event achieved great success and was sponsored by the British royal family.
Here were exhibited 170 specimens of different breeds, many of them long-haired black scrapes called "angora and Persian cats". Immediately the Persian cat became a symbol of luxury, beauty and well-being, always relating to members of high society, including Queen Victoria, who bought two Persian specimens at that Exhibition, or the Prince of Wales, who signed an autograph on the photo of the winning cat. The first colors described by Weir were white, black, blue, grey, red and any other uniform color, with brown, blue, silver and light gray and white for the striped.
The black Persians who were present in this London contest were rather rare and considered themselves very particular because of the orange color of their eyes, which contrasted with the green of most other long-haired cats.
Later, in 1901, the colors that would be recognized in England would be black, white, blue, orange, cream, seal, smoke, striped, speckled, chinchilla, turtle shell, bicolor and tricolor.
In 1910, the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy of Great Britain was created, which included the various clubs of passionate advocates for the various varieties of Persian cats. Regarding the Black Persian, the English breeder Cyril Yeats, a member of the
GCCF was one of the promoters of this type, due to the great selection work he carried out. On the other hand, it should be noted that the evolution of the Persians stagnated in Europe due to World War II. However, these cats came to the United States from Europe and were raised with great success, focusing mainly on getting a short cat with magnificent fur. In fact in 1951 the black Persian great champion "Pied Piper of Barbed Blue" was the first cat of the year.
General features
The main feature of the Black Persian is its lustrous and heavy black mantle, which gives this variety of Persian a great luxury and mystery. Its bright orange or copper eyes produce an exceptional contrast on its bright fur looking
The deep black of his cloak demands a very difficult standard to obtain. The grey roots of the hairs and the red shadows are difficult defects to eliminate, because black is altered even with the sun's rays and with moisture.
Color: Jet black. The color does not extend from the tip of the hair to its base, without shadows of any other color, nor white hair marks of any kind. The skin of the nose in these specimens is black, the skin of the black or brown plantar bearings.
Mantle: It is long and thick throughout the body, soft texture; the hair around the neck forms a well-marked collar of longer hair, continuing with an abundant breather among the forelimbs. The ear feather is long
And abundant, the fur between the fingers is of good length, the tail forms plume with abundant long hair and very fluffy.
Body: Cabby type (short), very compact, low in relation to the forehand and post limbs.
Wide and deep breast, equally massive through the shoulders and hip, with a short and well-rounded trunk and straight back.
Head: It is round and massive, well implanted to the body. The round face with the skull
Width.
Eyes: Very large, round and full, of separate implantation, giving it a sweet expression. The color is very intense orange or copper, without any green trace.
Nose: Very short, extremely flat and very wide, with a differentiation of the skull and separated by a well marked nasal frontdepression at eye level.
Maxilares: They are wide and powerful, with white teeth, pointed, closing in scissor bite.
Chin: Full and well developed. Currently it is accepted between one or two millimeters of lower prognathism to achieve excellent chins and a magnificent expression.
Ears: Very small, finished in rounded tip, always erect and well separated from each other, wide at its base, low implantation, following the round contour of the head, inclined forward with abundant feather.
Neck: Short and very thick, which acts as suitable support to a massive head.
Foreandands: Short in relation to their height, thick, with very heavy and perfectly straight bone structure, covered with hair.
Feet: Large, short, round, firm, with fingers very close together, five fingers on each anterior limb and four fingers on each hind limb.
Tail: Rather short in proportion to the body, always carried high, without curvatures and at lower angle in relation to the back, well provided with long and fluffy hair.
Defects: Defects are considered and as such are penalized by the judge all malformations of:
• The osamenta: cloudy or hook in the tail, deviated maxilla, prognathism of the upper and lower jaw.
• Dentures: canines protruding from the mouth, lack of some teeth or pieces thereof.
• Eyes: strabismus or tendency to strabismus and sunken eyes in the cranial cavity.
• From the genital tract: monorchia and cryptorchidism.
• Number of fingers: poly/oligodactyly.
Playback
What most Persa breeders agree on is that the black variety is sexually quite precocious.
As for the stallion, the male usually begins to manifest his sexuality at seven or eight months and reaches maturity at ten months of age, although many more can happen before being ready for copulation.
As a rule, the cat carries out sexual activity within its territory and hardly the stallion can be borrowed for riding away from home. The habit of marking the territory is necessary in the natural state to indicate its presence and willingness to the females and so that the other males do not enter their area.
From the point of view of the people contemplating the possibility of a future breeding, the choice of the male is of paramount importance, since its mission is to improve and correct, if necessary, the characteristics of the females in the future litters.
Relative to the female, she matures sexually between eight and ten months. Normally the first zeal is very light, and the estro lasts from three days to a week. If there has been no copulation, it can occur again after 15 or 20 days. On the contrary
occurring in other animal species, ovulation does not occur if there has been no copulation. During estro the female can copulate many times and beget cats from different parents.
In nature, reproductive cycles are relative to the seasons and to the duration of daylight. In the Persians in general, electric light and different living conditions make the estros can be presented at any time of the year.
As far as riding is concerned, it is normal for a kitten who has been taken out of the house at first, is frightened and can manifest in the presence of the male a certain aggressiveness, but as a rule in a few days nature imposes its law and the mountain is produced.
Pregnancy is an average duration of 65 days, but there are several factors that can cause it to last or shorten a few days. After the fourth or fifth week the fetuses are already palpable, their length is about 2.5 centimeters. This practice
it is totally inadvisable, because an unfortunate palpation could cause the fetus to be separated from the uterine wall.
In most cases, childbirth goes smoothly, although as a preventive measure it is advisable to contact the veterinarian so that it can be reached quickly in case of need.
The newborn Persian kitten weighs, on average, about 90 or 100 grams. Instinct will immediately lead them to look for nipples. The first liquid they secrete is the calostro, very important for the little ones because it is rich in protein.
During the first days the growth of puppies is very fast, 10 or 15 grams per day, and among the puppies are immediately established hierarchies.
The Black Persians are generally good mothers, to the point of not even wanting to abandon their cubs during the first days of life, not even to eat. These cats love being with their newborns. Continuously, moreover, they are
busy cleaning and grooming their little ones. Females start to leave their nest when the little ones are full of food and asleep, which also allows them to stretch the body around the house a little, although they will always be
return immediately to monitor and continue breastfeeding their little ones.
Care
The grooming of the black Persian is the same as in the others. The only thing that varies is the treatment of the mantle. That's why it's more important that we stop in this regard.
As we already know, the great appeal of the black Persian is its fur. Therefore we must get used to our kitten and from a young age to receive all the necessary care to keep its mantle in optimal conditions: often brushed, baths, etc.
It is very important to get our Persian to bathe frequently. In this way we will prevent fat from accumulating in the mantle, and it will facilitate the removal of dead hair and birth of the new.
Grooming is different depending on the color of our pet. We for our kitten will use a color shampoo for blacks in each maintenance bath, thus rekindling the original color of the layer. In the face of an exhibition, it is advisable to bathe our black Persian three or four days before the contest so that the cape is in its perfect condition.
In the case of black Persian the protective layer should be left as is. Only the white and hard hairs that appear mixed between the rest of the fur should be removed. These hairs are not very abundant in general and are very easily removed by hand. They are dead hairs that come out from the root; In addition, this process is painless for the animal.
The aforementioned protective layer should not be waxed, since it is precisely an intense black and without it the black is turned off, leaving a lighter color. You could only wax your mantle (and never before an exposure) if the tips were rusty because the cat had gone out into the garden a lot and, by moisture or the sun, deteriorated its fur. Faced with this, it is important not to let our cat expose himself too much to the sun, as the mantle becomes mahogany and this is penalized by the judges as a symptom of dejadity by the owners.
On the other hand, the hair of black cats and those of tortoise scale is smoothed to rest on the body like a silk dress. A slight pass of cologne water on the back will brighten the colors.
Puppies do not look the same as adults. Until two or three months, its black color is more or less compact, but gradually until adult age, a multitude of grays are usually mixed in the black layer. When the cat is already an adult, these grays gradually begin to disappear, obtaining the black Persian its ultimate fur. This, of course, is known to the judges and is not penalized as a defect.