Touted as the World's Rarest Domestic Cat Breed, the California Spangled Cat has been a breed often spoken of in mythical or economic proportions. Shrouded in mystery, I set out to find some answers to old rumors, and ended up falling in love with a quickly disappearing breed of feline.

The reason that I say "wild looking" is because the Spangled has absolutely no wild blood.  Through thorough planning and research, the originator of the breed designed the Spangled from 100% domestic cats.  His purpose was similar to the reasons behind the creation of the Bengal breed - to create a breed of cat whose looks make people think twice before they purchase a real fur product.  After all, it is hard to justify buying a coat that reminds you of your family pet at home.

He is not looking for breeders to keep the breed going at this time. The breed has hit a dead end of sorts, with very few breeding cats, and those getting older and not reproducing.

The Spangled has actually been a closed breed for about 25 years, so they did breed true, and there is an official Breed Standard.

The breed originator's reasons for creating the breed (similar to the generally accepted Bengal reasoning) were considered bold and important at the time of the foundation of the breed. There was an unexpected bad spin put on his cats when Neiman-Marcus approached him about putting his cats in their catalog for Christmas in 1986. He saw this as an opportunity to show the world (and especially those who could afford fur clothing) that spotted fur belonged on your lap, not on your back. He was, and is, extremely anti-fur, and very environmentally conscious. The catalog gave birth to an initial wave of interest, and unfortunately a far-reaching all-encompassing backlash from the cat world. The breeding program was all but abandoned until very recently when new interest was sparked in this dying breed, this unicorn of the cat world