Hi
People do come on here for help and they do get help about lots of topics including the question "Is my rescue cat a Bengal?"
I though, can not lie to those who have a rescue tabby cat and say that it is definitely a Bengal. I can say it is a nice cat or a cute cat or a big or a small cat or even a strikingly beautiful cat but I cannot say it is definitely a Bengal, without its papers. It may be part Bengal or even full Bengal, it may just be a very attractive tabby cat of uncertain parentage, it may be an Ocicat/Egyptian Mau/BSH/ASH cross or any other breed where tabby cat markings are produced.
If Bengal breeding was just about producing a tabby cat then it would be very easy indeed. Cats can manage that all by themselves.
I think that educating folks to the complexity of the breed is important.
I don't personally want people passing off a tabby cat as a Bengal to their relatives, neighbours and friends. That would be doing the breed a disservice. It is like the emperor's new clothes, the owner sees a Bengal but everyone else sees a tabby and will have the opinion that "If that is a Bengal then I don't want one as it looks like a tabby cat to me".
If Jean Mill had not had a vision of what she wanted to produce all those years ago with the Bengal, and the thousands, nay millions of dedicated cat breeders trying to produce something "better" every year then we would all be mating our pet cat to the cat next door but one.
I don't want to go down that road.
I want the Bengal breed to be different as chalk and cheese from a normal tabby so that there is no confusion.
I know I sound a bit elitest but that I think is what pedigree breeding is all about. From breeding dogs, horses, sheep, goats, cattle, rabbits, poultry even hamsters and budgerigars the aim is to produce a perfect specimen of the breed or to push the boat and develop a completely different look. Hence the myriad of colours and types in budgies, all from the green bodied and yellow headed native Australian bird.
I know we are not all going to produce the perfect specimen or develop a new look. That, however, is the challenge and some of us will achieve some success, whether it be producing a champion here and there, or merely looking back over your cats to see that you have actually improved over the years by wisely choosing your matings or for the lucky few to breed a really spectacular cat.
If that is wrong then that is a completely different argument and perhaps not one for a site dedicated to a pedigree cat.
Elsa