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About the British Shorthair

Origin: United Kingdom
British Shorthair cat
Photo from The Cat API
View British Shorthair breedersSee British Shorthair kittens

69 breeders are on record here.

Typical life span
12-17 years
Size
Large — from its typical weight
Weight
5.4-9.1 kg
Height
30-38 cm
Registry status
Recognised by TICA
Breed group
Short-haired
Origin
United Kingdom
Known hereditary risks
2 documented conditions, with the test for each

About

What is a British Shorthair?

Large, round, cobby cat with dense plush coat and characteristic chubby cheeks. Known for its calm, easy-going temperament and teddy bear appearance.

British Shorthair history and origins

One of the oldest English cat breeds, descended from cats brought by Romans. Nearly extinct after WWII but rebuilt using Persian crosses. The British Blue is the most famous color variety.

British Shorthair appearance and size

Typically 5.4-9.1 kg and 30-38 cm at the shoulder — published as one range rather than separately for males and females.

British Shorthair temperament and personality

Generally described as affectionate, easy going, gentle, loyal, patient, calm and independent.

That is the breed in general, not a promise about one animal. Ask the breeder what their own line is like, and meet the parents before you decide.

Breed reference from The Cat API.

Characteristics

Size
Large
Exercise needs
—
Easy to train
—
Amount of shedding
4 of 5
Grooming needs
2 of 5
Good with children
—
Cost to keep
—
Tolerates being alone
—
Intelligence
—
Health of breed
2 conditions documented

Pros & cons

Pros & cons for the British Shorthair

What you get with the British Shorthair

  • Low grooming needs, fitting for a busy owner — the coat is “Short, dense, not lying flat and with a good undercoat.”
  • Commonly described as: “Affectionate, Easy Going, Gentle, Loyal”

What you are taking on

  • One serious inherited condition is documented, in heart & circulation. The health guide tab has the test to ask a breeder for.

Drawn from sources rather than written as an opinion — cited health research, the registry’s own standard, and peer-reviewed longevity. FIFe breed standard; The Cat API; Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, via PubMed. One breeder’s animals can differ from any of it, and an empty column means we hold nothing for that side rather than that there is nothing to say.

Characteristics

FIFe standard · British Shorthair

Coat

As the FIFe standard sets it out. Every line below is the standard’s own wording.

Coat

Short, dense, not lying flat and with a good undercoat.

Texture should be crisp to touch.

Shortened from FIFe standard BSH — each label is the standard’s own wording with the verdict lifted into the tag beside it. Read the full clause at source.

TICA divisions

TICA lists the British Shorthair in these divisions. They are the registry's own groupings — usually hair length — not a list of colours: no registry we hold publishes one. Ask a breeder what colours their line produces.

  • Longhair

Temperament

AffectionateEasy GoingGentleLoyalPatientCalmIndependent

Breed-level information from The Cat API. It describes the British Shorthair in general; any individual animal can differ.

Health guide

Health & screening guide for the British Shorthair

Known hereditary risks for the British Shorthair breed, and the specific documentation to request from any breeder before paying a deposit. A responsible breeder will have these readily available; deflection is a red flag.

2 conditions documented

Health checklist (PDF)

Heart & circulation

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)

Serious

A peer-reviewed cohort study screening 329 British Shorthairs presented for routine HCM screening in Denmark found a clinically significant prevalence of the disease in the breed, independent of the two known commercial feline HCM mutations. No breed-specific causal mutation has been identified in British Shorthair.

What to ask for

No DNA test exists for British Shorthair HCM. The two commercial feline HCM DNA tests (MYBPC3 A31P, validated for Maine Coon; MYBPC3 R820W, validated for Ragdoll/Ragamuffin) are breed-specific and are not validated in British Shorthair. Screening is by echocardiogram performed by a cardiologist, repeated periodically through breeding life.

2 sources

Blood

Neonatal isoerythrolysis risk (blood type B)

Monitor

British Shorthair is named by UC Davis VGL as one of the breeds with a high frequency of the blood type B allele. A type B queen mated to a type A or AB tom risks producing kittens that develop neonatal isoerythrolysis (a fatal or life-threatening haemolytic reaction) after nursing colostrum containing anti-A antibodies.

What to ask for

AB blood typing test (UC Davis VGL and other labs). Both breeding partners should be blood-typed before pairing so an at-risk mating can be avoided or managed (e.g. foster-nursing kittens for the first 24-48 hours).

1 source

How long the British Shorthair lives, in the records

Median age at death 10.9 years

Middle half of deaths between 2.9 and 14.7 years, from 194 recorded deaths. 18.6% of them were before age two.

Read this with care. Well above the 7.5% seen in non-pedigree cats, which pulls the median down. That can mean higher mortality in young cats, or simply that the breed has become popular recently so most of its cats are still young — these records cannot tell the two apart.

Computed from United Kingdom veterinary records covering 7,936 deaths. This is an age at death, not a life expectancy: half the cats of this breed in the records died younger.

Dataset: O'Neill, D. & Teng, K.T. (2024), Figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.25006802, CC BY 4.0. Teng, K.T., Brodbelt, D.C., Church, D.B. & O'Neill, D.G. (2024) Life tables of annual life expectancy and risk factors for mortality in cats in the United Kingdom. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery 26(5).

Gallery

No photographs yet

This is where British Shorthair owners’ own photographs will go, from the pet profiles they keep here. Nobody has added one to a public page yet.

A photograph in a pet profile stays private to its owner. We will not put one here unless they ask us to.

Kittens

No kittens listed right now

That is not the same as none existing. Publishing a litter is part of a breeder's subscription here, so a British Shorthair breeder can have a litter and no listing — ask them directly.

See British Shorthair breeders
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