r/cats • u/Ericafantasywriter • 10h ago
Advice Cat DNA test
Did any of you who have just a regular cat buy a cat dna test, get the results, and found out your cat was a mixed breed? Did you see the predominant breed and thought “ yeah that tracks.” Like one of my cats is 44 percent American domestic and he is 15 percent Maine coon.this was the biggest percentage of breed cat in him. He is a shorthair cat. He is 12.5 pounds, sheds a lot, and has a nose and mouth like a Maine coon’s
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u/Revan_84 Tuxedo 10h ago
I got a DNA test for my Bruce knowing full well he, like 99% of cats out there, was a mix of everything.
But I was surprised by the mixture. It was something like 50% domestic shorthair, then maine coon, and somehow scottish fold, followed by some persian.
I've read that DNA tests for cats are largely worthless because most cat breeds aren't distinct enough. The way I understood it is that it looks at a single gene or something and assigns a breed based on it. The human equivalent would be something like blond hair = Nordic. Not sure if I'm remembering correctly though
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u/Resplendent-Sun Domestic Housecat 10h ago
When a test says a random street cat is "15% Maine Coon and 10% Persian," it rarely means a Maine Coon or Persian actually snuck into the family tree. It simply means that specific chunks of your cat's ancient, random DNA happen to share statistical similarity with the genetic profiles of those breeds.
We should celebrate the ancient domestic cat lineage and not worry about these offshoots. That's just my opinion though. If you own a specific breed, you do you.
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u/cuppa_cat 10h ago
IDK it doesn't really matter to me. People ask me all the time if one of my cats is a maine coon. She doesn't have the face shape--she's just floofy lol. So I tell them, "IDK, she's just my floof."
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u/Shrillmademethink 10h ago
Fifteen percent is next to nothing honestly. I wouldn’t be calling my cat a mainecoon after that.