In 1961, a shepherd named William Ross found a barn cat with a curious feature: instead of the upright, swiveling, satellite dish ears of a normal feline, this cat’s ears were floppy and shapeless, resting atop her head like a tiny knitted cap.
Ross took the cat home and named her Susie. Susie gave birth to a litter of kittens with the same floppy ears, and it all gets a bit murky from there, with a dozen variations of the story online claiming it was Ross himself or a neighbor who “created” the breed.
Regardless of who it was, the floppy ears were transformed from an abnormal feature into the unmistakable characteristic of a breed, and the Scottish Fold was born.
The cute cats quickly caught on and were officially recognized in competitions by 1971.
Now they’re more in vogue than ever. They’re the preferred pets of music superstars Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, who regularly feature photos and videos of their Scottish Folds in social media posts. People across the world are buying them, and they routinely appear in “best breed” lists online, lauded for being cuddly and docile in addition to adorable.
But they’ve also been banned by the same cat fancy groups that initially welcomed them, they’re prohibited outright in some countries, and animal welfare groups are begging people to stop emulating celebrities by buying them.
That’s because the same deformity that gives Scottish Folds their distinctive ears is also responsible for weak and brittle cartilage and bones elsewhere in the body, which results in lifelong pain and disability.
According to the RSPCA:
“The disease is evident on x-rays of cats from as young as seven weeks of age. Serious abnormalities in joints and bone growth lead to arthritis (painful, swollen joints), short, abnormally thick, and inflexible tails, spinal abnormalities and short, stiff legs. The welfare impacts of Scottish Fold Osteochondrodysplasia can be severe in terms of pain and inability to perform natural behaviours, as these cats can be lame, walk with an abnormal gait, can be reluctant to engage in normal movements such as walking or jumping, and can even become completely crippled.
There is no cure for this progressive condition.”
Sadly, the deformities and resulting pain may be the reason Scottish Folds are considered docile and cuddly: they may simply be in too much pain to move or protest when their humans hug them or pick them up.
Ross and Turner didn’t know it in 1961, but the folded ears and brittle cartilage were the result of a genetic mutation. It wasn’t until 2016 that a group of American and Australian scientists found a mutation in a single gene, TRPV4, was responsible for weak cartilage and bones, leading to the deformities highlighted by the RSPCA in the passage above, as well as “progressive joint destruction.” The condition is called osteochondrodysplasia.
Cats Protection, a UK charity, raised the issue in 2024, warning that Scottish Folds were becoming even more popular, with breeders struggling to meet high demand. The group issued a public statement asking cat lovers and Swift fans to avoid buying Scottish Folds. Scottish Folds are equally popular in the US, spurring resistance from stateside animal welfare groups as well.
The Governing Council of Cat Fancy, which registers breeds in the UK — and no longer recognizes Scottish Folds — was even more direct.
“We strongly advise members of the public not to try to acquire cats of this breed,” Steve Crow, chairman of Cat Fancy’s governing board, told The Guardian.
Pain In The Bud 
I believe that the best cats are shelter adoptions or strays. (Sgt Stripes was a stray and the rest are from various shelters.) Particularly if you get an adult, they seem like they appreciated having a good home. (Not that they don’t rule with an iron paw. 🙂 )
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I wondered about that once, whether cats who had been strays would be more “grateful,” and someone set me straight by saying it doesn’t matter where the cat came from, once they get settled, they expect you to serve them diligently and that’s the natural order of things lol.
Your cats are proof that beautiful kitties come from shelters. Of course I’m partial to tabbies and I think Bud is a very handsome little guy too.
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Bud is a very handsome mancat. And he seems to have trained you well 🙂
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He is the founder of Le Handsome Club, the club for le handsome cats. He would like to extend an invitation to your pride. The only requirement is being handsome.
All jokes aside, it was initially just an excuse for me to make new graphics featuring Bud, but since then it’s kind of become its own thing, yet another one of Buddy’s many egotistical ventures.
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You two are lucky to have found each other.
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Oops, we blew it again! Thank you for this enlightening post, I had never read about this before. I’ve never seen anything about the dark side of the poor Scottish Fold. They always were portrayed as healthy cats. This is bad.
Once again, thank you, Candi Ausman, lifelong cat lover
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It’s kind of like French bulldogs (breathing problems), huskies (severe problems with their back legs) and “toy” breeds (various health issues).
Breeding to maintain or magnify a mutation for aesthetic purposes can lead to major issues, and it’s sad to say, but those animals would probably not have been genetically successful without human intervention.
We’ve hijacked the evolutionary process, or maybe more accurately, we’ve hijacked it to a greater degree than we already have through domestication. When people “create” breeds, they have no idea what some geneticist might find years later.
But that’s also why “no breed” cats are generally the healthiest.
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Those poor kitties … it’s worse than I thought. I always wondered, why breed for a trait that closes off the super sharp hearing of cats!? Most of our cats have come from “the streets”, the random bred population which usually does just fine … Though there are lots of traits there from breed cats who were allowed to roam, or abandoned by breeders, especially Siamese and Persian. Also had one who very likely had some Havana Brown ancestry.
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Wait, what?? Siamese, Persian and Havana Brown are being tossed into the street (so to speak)? I’ve always thought those breeds were like the pinnacle of cat breeds. The best of the best and the ones you’d really want if you had the money. That is just shocking.
I love Siamese cats because I think they’re beautiful and I like the fact that they talk, a lot! My Mom’s friend had a pair and they never shut up. I loved it! I can see why that can be annoying, but why get that breed if you already know it does that? I knew they were talkers long before I’d ever met a Siamese cat. You’d have to be really out to lunch to not know that about them. Of course. people are stupid and don’t do research before they get things, including pets and this crap happens. All of our pets have come from word of mouth. Someone wanted to get rid of them, so I’d take them. Were they all perfect? Oh hell no. But would I ever think to get rid of them because of that, no way.
Well, that’s a really sad commentary on how evil we humans are. We make these creatures for our amusement and when we get tired of them or they’re not the “in thing” anymore, we toss them out like so much trash. Christ, look at all the Chihuahuas that ended up in shelters after Paris Hilton and her idiot friends made them the IT thing to have. Those little dogs can be a serious handful and when people found this out, well, out they go. And I’m sorry to say, guilty of long little dogs. My fave is the Mini Dachshund. We had one. She’d been abused, kicked and god only knows what else in the 3 yrs before we got her. These people would just toss her away when they’d get tired of her. She took a long time to come to realize she’d found her forever home with us. We had her for 14 more yrs and she was the light of our lives.
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In some cases I think people just let their intact purebreds roam … And Siamese and Persian breed cats have been popular pets for a long time. In our Bud’s case, he was a chocolate brown, green-eyed cat (with white feet) who turned up in a feral cat’s litter in about 2000 … we’d never seen any cat like it amidst neighborhood ferals, so thought of Havana Brown. (All kittens plus Mom were TNRed and homed.)
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I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently Persian and Siamese are considered “out of fashion” for people who view cats as collectibles or status symbols, while Bengals and Savannah cats are the new desirable breeds.
To me it’s the cat’s disposition, the memories you share with them and the bonds you form that makes it special. I mean, sure, a cat with jaguar-like rosettes would be cool, but that’s a novelty that will wear off while personality and bond endure.
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I once saw a Youtube video in which people bought an infant rhesus macaque, brought him home and only then did it occur to them that they should find out what macaques eat.
Taking a baby monkey away from his or her mom causes a lifetime of psychological problems for those animals, and 99% of people abandon their monkeys within 2 years because they go from cute and docile babies to juveniles who can’t be controlled, so buying a monkey pet is a terrible and destructive thing to do not only for those reasons, but many others as well.
But the lack of curiosity those people showed was astonishing.
I’m sure there are people who do the same with cats.
I’m far from perfect and made more than my share of mistakes with Bud, but I did spend weeks reading everything I could about kitten care, kitten-proofing homes, what to expect, how to handle specific situations, etc. It’s not like buying a new TV and reading the manual at home. These are living creatures with their own emotions and needs.
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Hi Carmen. Yes they are thrown streets and shelters. When i did cat rescue years ago we found purebreads tossed into the streets.
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That’s why people involved in rescue often tell adopters that they CAN find Siamese, Maine Coons, Persians and other breeds in shelters. They’re out there, with plenty who need homes.
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To Gilda and Big Bud:
You can find pure bred dogs at shelters and I’ve seen them. Our Mini Weenie was a pure bred and people passed her around like garbage. She didn’t come to us through a shelter, but who knows if she spent time in one.
I’ve never seen a pure bred cat at the shelters I’ve been to. The thought of pure bred cats being dumped just even crossed my mind. What a dolt I am! 🤣
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I think people see all these “top 10 breeds” clickbait articles and they think cat breeds are like dog breeds in terms of predictable behavior, but cats didn’t need breeding to do the job people wanted them to do, so cat breeding is a relatively recent thing and is purely aesthetic. No one ever “created” a cat breed for behavioral traits.
A friend of mine said it plainly when I was looking to adopt: “It’s a crapshoot.”
I wrote a post about this a while back, but it may be time for a follow-up.
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Interesting that those who want purebreds have changed their preferences … When I mentioned Siamese and Persians, I meant that they both been introduced to the western world long times ago, so there has been plenty of time for their genes to get into those of the random bred populations.
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Yeah these things go in waves of popularity, which is unfortunate because in this case we’re talking about living creatures instead of Beanie Babies, Pokémon or whatever craze catches on.
Celebrities have a huge effect. Lots of people bought capuchin monkeys and marmosets when Justin Bieber and Rihanna bought them respectively. Those animals have all been long abandoned now, and the lucky few end up in sanctuaries.
A marmoset sure looks cute in Instagram photos, but the reality is they smell like shit, and taking them away from their moms leads to abnormal psychological development and behavioral problems in addition to the other behavioral problems associated with living in human homes.
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I volunteered at a shelter where a senior Scottish Fold had been surrendered – and we adopted him. Angus McGee. He was diabetic so had to have daily insulin shots (easier to administer than I thought) and he outlived his predicted years with us by 2.
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Good on you for giving Angus a home in his golden years. I hate that people moving into assisted care are forced to give up their pets, which seems to be the reason for so many surrenders, especially older cats.
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Here is the way i see it. What would happen to these purebreds if they are not adopted?Fault lies in the over breeding of cats and dogs. Let’ s start with a law banning breeding. If no supply no demand. But we all know that will never happen.
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Well, a lot of states have banned selling animals in retail businesses, so no more pet shops. The major source now is independent breeders selling on the web. I don’t know much about that, or whether there’s been any legislative pushback.
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Independent breeders are the problem here. They are going to say they have the right to breed and sell. Normal people get a job like the rest of us.
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I don’t think you could ever ban breeding even if you passed a law banning it. It’ll just become an underground black market. We have laws banning the selling and importing of endangered and exotic animals. Look how well those laws have been enforced. It’s almost impossible to do.
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Yo Big Buddy:
With most of my pets, I never had the chance to vibe with them or get to know their personalities before hand because I was taking them sight unseen because I will not let these animals go to a shelter and possibly be put down. I’ve never been wrong or had regrets doing it. Our house is the Ark and people that know me know I’ll take the ones no one else wants. Knowing personalities wasn’t important to me because I knew it would just work out. And it always has. To this day, personality isn’t a top priority for me when picking a cat. When I found my Oliver at the shelter, there was just this wave of something. It was the same feeling that sent me to the shelter that day to begin with. A sensation that told me he was the one. It’s kinda creepy in a way. It didn’t matter that he was 6 or had a herpes eye infection. I didn’t care. He was the one I had gone to the shelter to find. The girls that were helping me were like, “You want him?” Yeah, I wanted him. And it was the best decision. I just wish I could’ve had him longer. I have to feel that sensation before I’ll pick a cat or dog for that matter.
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Wow I just got a plush cat in a surprise box (you could get 1 of 8 different ones) and I got the Scottish fold and it looks just like Taylor Swift’s cat in the picture. The colors and everything… I wish people would stick to getting plush toys if they want a specific breed of cat. Breeding cats to satisfy a trend is just wrong, any way you slice it. It seems less popular than breeding designer dogs, but it’s getting worse.
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What’s the name of the surprise box thing? My niece loves cats but can’t have one due to allergies in the family, but something like that would be a nice gift for her.
Anyways, Scottish Folds pretty much look like plush cats, which I guess is the appeal.
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They are called Pets Alive Smitten Kittens by Zuru and they come in a plastic pink cat’s head. Hard to open, but once you do, you get a cute plush for a good price and they are on sale now. Needs 3 AAA batteries.
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Thanks for the info, this will be a great gift. On a related note, when I Googled, I saw an “unboxing” video of these things by an adult man and…wow. People are out of their minds.
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