Short and sweet Munchkins in unique cat-egory

By ANGELA GREGORY

They sit like rabbits, run like ferrets and trot like dachshunds.

But the little fluffy bundles with short limbs and deceptively long backs are cats - dwarf cats.

The cats with super-short legs have been introduced into New Zealand by Albany cat breeder Twink McCabe.

She ordered her first stubby cat from the United States where, in 1983, a Louisiana woman had discovered a pregnant female cat with very short legs under a pick-up truck.

The cat passed on the short legs to half of her kittens, indicating a dominant gene.

The new breed was named Munchkins, after the little people in the Wizard of Oz.

Despite their appearance the cats were a naturally occurring breed.

A spontaneous mutation caused the shortening and slight bowing of their long bones similar to that seen in dachshunds and corgies.

"There are no other skeletal changes associated with the gene," she said.

"The spine is indistinguishable from that of other cats ... their backs just look longer because of the short legs."

She said the cats were particularly popular with children.

"They have also been a hit with some of our little people, and some dachshund owners."

The rug-huggers, as she affectionately calls her favourite cats, were friendly and curious which made them great companions. She recently sent one of the cats to a man living in Sydney who was about to go onto a dialysis Machine.

The cats were intelligent and curious.

"They investigate anything. I have had to rescue them from the clothes drier, washing machine and refrigerator."

They were also natural magpies, and she regularly found caches of small objects tucked away in odd places.

As the only breeder of the cats in the country, and the first in Australasia, she has nevertheless heard several reports of "wild" Munchkins in New Zealand.

She is so keen to discover any that she is prepared to pay a reward for a genuine specimen if it can be caught.

She first showed her Munchkins at the Easter Show this year, and got good feedback from an American judge.

She next shows them at the ASB Stadium in Kohimarama on August 24.