California Spangled
Bred in the 1980s to look like a spotted wild cat with no wild blood in it, as an argument against the fur trade. Very rare, and once sold by a department store.
Overview
The California Spangled was created in the 1980s by Paul Casey with an explicit message behind it: a domestic cat spotted like a wild one, bred to make people think twice about wearing spotted fur.
There is no wild blood in it at all. The spots came from crossing domestic breeds including Abyssinians, Siamese and British Shorthairs, which is the point of the exercise and the reason it carries none of the legal complications a Bengal does.
Temperament
Active, confident and social. Spangleds are athletic cats that use height and want interaction, and they were selected to be affectionate as well as to look wild.
They are people oriented and moderately vocal, and they play hard well into adulthood. They are not a cat that is happy being ignored.
Care and grooming
A weekly brush for the short spotted coat and very little else.
The breed is extremely rare and was largely a 1980s phenomenon, so the population is small and scattered. That narrowness is the main health question rather than any documented condition, and anyone buying one should ask carefully about the pedigree behind it.
Living and exercise
Vertical space, climbing, and daily interactive play. This is an athletic cat and it behaves like one.
The honest position is that finding one is the hard part. Numbers dropped sharply after the founder's death and the breed may not be recoverable in any meaningful way.
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