Scottish straight
The Scottish Straight is a cat from Scottish Fold breeding that did not inherit the fold gene, so its ears stand normally.
Because two folded cats must never be bred together, straights are essential to the breed: nearly every Fold litter comes from a Fold crossed with a Straight, and roughly half the kittens are straight-eared.
It is otherwise the same cat — round-faced, dense-coated, 3 to 6 kilograms, with the same quiet, placid, affectionate temperament. The difference that matters is medical: a Scottish Straight does not carry the cartilage mutation and does not develop the degenerative joint disease that affects every folded cat. It is, straightforwardly, the healthy version of the same breed.
- Origin
- Scotland; the straight-eared offspring of Fold breeding
- Size
- 3–6 kg
- Lifespan
- 12–16 years
- Coat
- Short or long, in most colours
- Temperament
- Placid, quiet, affectionate — as the Fold
- Health
- Does not carry the fold mutation or its joint disease
Related: British shorthair · Persian · Scottish fold
2 scottish straight photos, newest first
Living with a scottish straight
This is the cat to choose if you want the type. A Scottish Straight has the round face, the dense coat and the famously easy temperament without the cartilage defect, and it will not develop osteochondrodysplasia.
It still carries the health considerations of its wider ancestry: polycystic kidney disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy appear in the breed's British Shorthair and Persian background, and both are testable or screenable.
The dense coat needs brushing weekly, more in the longhaired variety.
They are sedentary cats and gain weight easily. Measured feeding and active play matter, because obesity in a cat is a diabetes and arthritis risk rather than a cosmetic one.
Annual checks, twice yearly past ten, with attention to kidneys and heart.
General guidance, not veterinary advice. Individual cats vary, and anything about a specific animal is a question for a vet who has seen it.
Worth reading alongside this
More cats by breed
Every cat breed somebody has posted a photo of.