History
The history of the Exotic Shorthair began around the late 1950s, when an American breeder by the name of Carolyn Bussey crossed a Persian with a brown Burmese, hoping to create a brown-colored Persian cat. The resulting black kittens, while not what she expected, were very cute, and Bussey imagined cat lovers would enjoy a shorter-haired version of a Persian that was easier to groom but still had most of the same characteristics of the traditional Persian, like their beauty and easy-going charm. These days, Exotics are limited to crosses with Persians in order to keep their pedigreed status. The Exotic Shorthair was granted Championship Status in 1967 by the CFA and in 1991 it was named the CFA’s “Cat of the Year.”
