Best Cat Breed

None of these cats would participate in a popularity contest voluntarily, which is a decent part of the appeal.

Cat breeds are a much younger idea than dog breeds, and it shows. Most were formalised within the last century and a half. Several exist because of a single spontaneous mutation that somebody decided to keep going. A few — the fold, the munchkin, the hairless — are still argued about on welfare grounds by people who breed cats for a living. And the Maine Coon is enormous and unaccountably gentle for reasons nobody has ever satisfactorily explained. Thirty-two breeds are in, and the question is which one you would take home rather than which one would win a show. Temperament counts, noise level counts, and so does how much of your day the animal fully intends to occupy without asking first.

The photographs are from Wikimedia Commons, so these are real cats belonging to real people rather than studio portraits — closer to what a breed actually looks like sitting on a sofa at four in the afternoon.