Aegean

It is the cat anyone has seen in a harbour in the Cyclades: a natural population, formed without human intervention over centuries on the islands of the Aegean Sea and on the western coast of Turkey. In the early 1990s the first Greek breeders began breeding it selectively to turn it into a breed, although none of the large international registries recognises it yet. It is a medium-sized, muscular cat with a coat between short and semi-long, almost always bicolour or tricolour with plenty of white, and with a reputation for getting on with water: in the harbours it waits for the fishermen, and some people have seen it fishing from the shore. In character it is clever, active and communicative, and adapts well to living in a flat.

Its coat looks after itself with a weekly brush. It needs hunting play every day, high places and something to do: it is a cat used to fending for itself. At home, secure windows and balconies. If you fall for one on holiday in Greece and bring it home, it will need a microchip, a rabies vaccination and the right travel paperwork (within the EU, a European pet passport), and it is wise to test it for leukaemia (FeLV) and immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and deworm it before it meets other cats.

As it was formed by natural selection, it has no known inherited diseases of its own, although there are no breed-specific studies either. Its risks are those of cats in general: kidney disease in old age, tartar, obesity if neutered without adjusting its food, and cystitis. Those that come off the street may bring parasites, calicivirus or FIV. Annual check-up and blood tests from the age of seven.