Controversy Grows Over the Rise of XL Bully Cats in the UK: Are Breeding Hairless Felines with ‘Exaggerated’ Features Worth the Serious Health Risks?H
Hairless ‘Bullycats’ with ‘exaggerated’ features are being bred in Britain and are gaining a ‘disturbing following’ on social media.
The ‘unnatural’ sphynx-like breed has short bowed legs and heavily wrinkled skin – much like a bully dog – as experts warn about the ‘horrifying’ growing designer fad despite the felines likely to go on to suffer serious health issues.
Cat lovers are being warned not to buy them and to boycott the breed as they will ‘endure lives blighted by suffering’.
It is thought the so-called Bullycat originated in the US but it has now made its way across the Atlantic with the trend building a ‘disturbing following’ on social media sites such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.
Animal welfare charity Naturewatch Foundation sent a clear message to those looking to buy a cat: ‘If you’re thinking about getting a cat, don’t buy into these harmful designer fads.’
The foundation said: ‘It’s shocking to see that these poor cats are starting to appear in the UK.
‘We’ve seen increasingly extreme breeding practices in the dog world in recent years, and it appears unscrupulous people are now turning their attention to exploiting cats in the same way, all in the pursuit of greed and social media likes.
‘Bullycats are an animal welfare disaster unfolding before our eyes and this kind of breeding is just cruel.’
Dr Dan O’Neill, associate professor of companion animal epidemiology at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), said it was ‘heartbreaking’ to see cats now going under the same suffering as dogs by humans fascinated by ‘extreme body shapes’.
‘Bullycats are likely to suffer similarly shortened lives to those reported from a recent RVC VetCompass paper in Sphynx cats that lived just 6.7 years compared to an average of 11.7 years in cats overall,’ he said.
‘Deliberately selecting for disease mutations, such as hairlessness that leads to sunburn, dwarfism that leads to mobility issues and joint pain, and folded skin that leads to lifetimes of skin infections means that many Bullycats will endure lives blighted by suffering.
‘The advice to anyone thinking of acquiring a cat or a dog is to always put the welfare of the animal first and to stop and think before acquiring an animal with an extreme and unnatural body shape that does not exist commonly in nature.’
