So you think this is cute?

So you think this is cute?

❤️❤️❤️So you think this is cute????❤️❤️❤️

These kittens are a family of 7 persians that came to us almost 14 weeks ago as a result of serious welfare concerns.

Today 3 of the kittens were neutered and also had surgery to allow them to breathe easier…. 3 more kittens will have the same surgery next week.

This surgery is called resection rhinoplasty and is a very complex, fiddly and time consuming procedure, but necessary to improve their quality of life.

❤️ Could you possibly donate £1 to help cover the surgical costs for this family ❤️

❤️Due to the time required for each surgery we are expecting this family to cost around £3000 in surgery to simply help them breathe.❤️

If you’d like to help all the ways you can donate are on our Donate page.

Can you imagine fighting for breath every day all day throughout your life??
Stenotic nares can be surgically corrected by removing a wedge of tissue from the nostrils, allowing improved airflow through the nostrils.

For inexplicable reasons, this has been seen to be desirable among many breeders and show judges. Many Persian (and related cats) are now bred with extremely malformed heads having exceptionally short and flattened/squashed noses, with large eyes.

This selective breeding has been highly detrimental to the health of the cats. Many different problems have been identified that have arisen directly from this selective breeding. These include:

Large protruding eyes with reduced ability to close the eyelids resulting in increased exposure of the cornea. This contributes to exposure keratitis and probably contributes to corneal sequestrum development (to which Persians are predisposed).

Persistent epiphora (ocular discharge) – this occurs because the tear ducts which would normally drain tears into the nose (tears are constantly produced to help protect the eye) have become so deformed with the change of facial shape that it is impossible for tears to drain properly.

Dental disease – the abnormalities of the skull mean that not only is the nose extremely short, the jaws and teeth are affected as well. The teeth no longer align properly in short-nosed Persian cats so they cannot bite and chew properly, predisposing to dental disease.

Studies have shown that the degree of brachycephalic is also related to small pelvis size in Persian cats which will contribute to dystocia (difficulty giving birth).

Severe brachycephalic also causes excessive skin folds on the face – this may predispose to bacterial or fungal skin infections, and may also contribute to the development of idiopathic facial dermatitis in Persians .

Brachycephalic airway syndrome is common in these cats – this is where affected cats have difficulty breathing due to a very narrow external opening of the nose (stenotic nares), narrow nasal passages or nasopharynx, and/or due to a relatively long soft palate – in some cases the breathing difficulties can be severe

All of these consequences from breeding cats with marked brachycephalic are clearly very detrimental to the health and welfare of the cat.

Bradford Cat Watch Rescue & Sanctuary believe that it is unethical to deliberately breed cats with such malformed skulls that the health of the cat suffers amongst other complications