When you look for a kitten one of the first questions you will probably be asked by the breeder is: "do you want pet or show quality"?

For a breeder pet or show quality are well defined expressions but for the inexperienced cat owner it is only too logical that you should be able to pet all cats and therefore all cats should belong to the group defined as pet quality cats. The layman is obviously right here but the cat world is full of strange expressions and fashion words that has no meaning for the person who does not take part in the sport.

Pet quality: When a breeder say pet quality he think of a kittens that he does not expect to celebrate great wins at the show bench. Maybe the tail should have been half a centimeter longer or the ears should have been placed slightly different on the head according to the standard. Usually the pet quality kittens are however exactly as beautiful as the show quality kittens and often they will even have more personality and charisma than the kittens sold as show quality.

Show quality: A few kittens seem to be the spitting image of the written standard of the breed. All traits have nearly the right size, placing, etc. That is the reason the breeder prefer that these cats will be shown. To prevent that the look of the breed slowly changes it is also these cats that the breeder prefer as parents for the next generation of the breed.

Intraregional differences:In Europe in FIFe breeders usually only operates with the two categories of kittens called pet quality and show quality and the show quality cats will also be an excellent breeding cat.

In USA however you will often hear about tree different categories of pedigree cats for sale: pet quality - same definition as in Europe breeders quality - a cat that the breeder expect to become a fine breeding cat but not a top show cat (it could be a cat that had an accident where for instance one ear was damaged) show and breeders quality - cats that the breeder expect both to get success as breeders and show cats