Cornish Rex

Every Cornish Rex alive descends from a cream-coloured kitten called Kallibunker, born in a Cornish barn in 1950 with a coat that had no business existing. The mutation removed the outer guard hairs entirely, leaving only the soft down of the undercoat, which lies in tight parallel waves, the marcel wave, named after an old hairdressing technique, from the top of the head to the tip of the tail. The result feels like nothing else: warm, slightly springy, closer to crushed velvet than to fur.

That coat is the source of both the appeal and the constraints. With no guard hairs and no real insulation, a Cornish Rex loses heat quickly and knows it. These cats seek out warmth relentlessly: radiators, laptops, sunny windowsills, the space under a duvet, the back of your neck. In a warm home this is charming. In a cool or draughty one it is a welfare problem, and no amount of blankets fully compensates for a cold room. If your heating goes off overnight in winter, plan for a covered bed and a safe pet-safe heat pad before the cat arrives.

The build matches the coat for delicacy of appearance and completely contradicts it in practice. A Cornish Rex has an arched back, a deep narrow chest, long fine legs and enormous ears set high on an egg-shaped head, a whippet in cat form. It looks fragile. It is not. This is one of the fastest, most acrobatic breeds in domestic cats, capable of turning in the air, sprinting flat out across a room and clearing surfaces that seem beyond a cat of four kilograms. Owners describe permanent kittenhood, and they mean it: a ten-year-old Cornish Rex will still ambush your ankles.

Behaviourally the breed is intensely social and highly interactive. It fetches, it opens things, it steals small objects and hides them, and it wants to be involved in whatever is happening, preferably from your shoulder. The voice is present but moderate, closer to a chirp than the Siamese wail. Left alone all day with nothing to do, an intelligent, athletic, sociable cat becomes a problem-solver, and its problems will be your cupboards. Two together, or a household with someone usually in, is the sensible arrangement.

Grooming is minimal and slightly counter-intuitive. Brushing is largely unnecessary and a stiff brush can damage the delicate coat; a hand or a piece of soft cloth is enough. What does need attention is oil. With so little coat to distribute it, sebum accumulates on the skin and in the ears, so many Cornish Rex need their ears wiped weekly and an occasional gentle bath with a cat-safe shampoo if the skin starts to feel greasy. Nails collect wax at the base for the same reason and want checking every couple of weeks. Whiskers and eyebrows are curly and brittle, and they break, this is normal and not a sign of anything wrong.

Health is generally good, with a short list to raise with a breeder. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy occurs in the breed and breeding cats should be echocardiogram-screened. Patellar luxation has been reported. Some lines carry a hereditary form of hair loss, and a small number of individuals have shown thin or patchy coats; ask what the adults look like at five years, not just at six months. Because the breed carries very little body fat, anaesthetic and drug dosing needs care, and a vet who knows the breed is an advantage. Being lean also means a Cornish Rex burns energy staying warm, so appetite is often robust and weight is rarely the problem it is in placid breeds.

What you get for all this is a cat with more personality per kilogram than almost anything else in this index, soft to touch, funny to watch, and thoroughly attached to the people it lives with. What it asks for is warmth, height, and company. Provide those three and there is very little else to manage.