Scottish Fold Cats

A lazy Scottish fold lolling on the floor

A Scottish Fold with its iconic folded ears

A Scottish Fold cat sitting on a cat tree witha blue background.

A cat walking along a cat tree horizontal pole

History

The Scottish Fold breed was founded in 1961 on a farm in Perthshire, Scotland. A shepherd called William Ross came across a white barn cat with unusual ears that folded forward in the middle. This cat was named Susie and she was bred from. Her litter of kittens had two among them that also had folded ears.

Ross registered the new breed with the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy in 1966. With the help of geneticist Pat Turner Ross started a breeding programme to develop the breed. This was done by crossing Susie, who was a white longhaired cat, with Persians, Exotic shorthairs, American Shorthairs, and Burmese. In the first three years of the breeding programme 76 kittens were produced- 34 with straight ears and 42 with folded ears. This led breeders to believe that the gene for folded ears was dominant. All Scottish folds today can have their ancestry traced back to Susie.

Behaviour

This is a very endearing sweet natured breed. Scottish folds are confident and love to be around their owners. They will happily follow you around helping out with day to day tasks. Scottish folds are also very intelligent and can be taught tricks like fetch and opening doors. This breed don’t like being left on their own as they tend to get lonely. They have a laid back personality so make a good family pet as they get on well with other pets and children.