Bobcats are unique to North America, with a distinctive look that many cat fanciers love. However, with a few exceptions, bobcats can be difficult pets. By some accounts, they have a classic Jekyll and Hyde personality, and Mr. Hyde is capable of emerging in a heartbeat. Dr. Jekyll is playful, curious, friendly, intelligent, and loves to cuddle, lick and head butt its owners. Mr. Hyde can be antisocial, aggressive toward other animals, has an inexhaustible supply of foul-smelling urine, sprays everything including it’s owner, and some have few qualms about taking a bite or slice out of an occasional human. Not only are they likely to leave your house smelling like a public toilet in China, one experienced handler of wild cats claims to have more scars from supposedly tame bobcats than from lions, tigers, and leopards combined.

The idea of a bobcat hybrid that would combine the looks and best traits of a bobcat while using a domestic to reduce the behavior problems has a lot of appeal. Although there have been claims of bobcats mating with domestics for centuries, those claims have never been proven in a way that convinces anyone with a scientific background. However, that hasn’t stopped breeders from creating legends and offering bobcat hybrids for sale, and there are at least three cat breeds that claim to have some bobcat ancestry.

This breed started with a male bobtail kitten found in Arizona in the 1960’s. The kitten was bred to a Siamese female, and the resulting kittens had the characteristic bobtail. The parents of the original kitten were unknown and even though the kitten was reported to be relatively small, bobcat ancestry was suspected because of the tail and the overall look.

The International Cat Association (TICA) was the first major cat breed organization to recognize the American Bobtail in 1989. Without going into excruciating detail, American bobtails bred to the TICA standard generally resemble a Maine Coon/Siamese mix with the hind legs jacked up a bit and a bobtail. The bobtail tends to be a dominant trait in these domestic crosses, though some kittens are born with longer tails.

The Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA) finally got around to recognizing the American Bobtail in 2000, and the CFA standard for the American Bobtail bears an amazing resemblance to the already established TICA standard for a Pixie-Bob. Although they also accept the more traditional look, CFA generally wants their American Bobtails to look like bobcats or at least a wild, spotted cat. As a result, American Bobtails purchased from different breeders may look like very different cats, depending on which breed standard is used.

The look of the CFA line of American Bobtails may have come partially from the early Pixie-Bobs, developed by Carol Ann Brewer in Washington. This is vehemently denied by most CFA American Bobtail breeders who generally view Carol as delusional while Carol views them as a group that took her cats and got the CFA recognition she’s always coveted. All we know for certain is that some Pixie-Bob and American Bobtail breeders shared cats early on, some CFA American Bobtails bear a striking resemblance to Pixie-Bobs, and some CFA American Bobtail breeders are still producing polydactyl kittens, which is a trait common to Pixie-Bobs.

In the 1980’s, Carol Ann Brewer in rural Washington claims to have come across a few litters of spotted kittens that resembled bobcats. According to her, the following basic story was told several times. “Fluffy was in heat, and I knew I shouldn’t have let her out because I’d seen a bobcat in the yard the day before. However she got out and came back badly scratched the next day. Two months later, these bobcatty looking kittens were born.” Cats with this background later became known as Legend Cats and an early female kitten named Pixie so impressed Carol that Pixie became the breed’s namesake and the standard for the breed’s look. It’s also worth noting that the mothers of some of the first kittens had extra toes, and the polydactyl gene remains dominant in Pixie-Bobs today.

To add spice to the legend, two of Carol’s early cats tested positive for wildness. Before getting too excited about this, it should be noted that genetic testing was in its infancy at the time and the test was considered unreliable, as it couldn’t identify wildness in a first generation wolf/dog hybrid. It’s also worth noting that most of Carol’s cats failed this test. In addition, by Carol’s own account, jungle cat hybrids were introduced into some of her lines relatively early, and this may have contributed to the results.

If you go to Carol’s website, www.pixie-bob.org, there are numerous references to bobcats designed to give the strong impression that Pixie-Bobs have some bobcat in the family tree. However, if you read this stuff CAREFULLY, you’ll notice that nowhere is the claim that Pixie-Bobs are part bobcat made directly. Even more interesting is that, when the breed was recognized by TICA and later by ACFA, Carol agreed to have Pixie-Bobs registered as a domestic breed and NOT as a wild hybrid.

Whether or not you believe the legend, even skeptics will concede that Pixie-Bobs have the coarse fur, heavily muscled bodies, and wide range of temperaments common to wild hybrids. It’s pretty likely there’s something wild in the family tree. If the skeptics are right and there’s no bobcat in the mix, where does the wildness come from?

What’s known for certain is that jungle cat hybrids were introduced early into the Pixie-Bob lines. By Carol’s own account, a Pixie-Bob breeder in Alaska and a few others also added bengals to the mix. Once TICA recognized the breed, there was an open registry until Pixie-Bobs were allowed to compete for championship status in the show ring. Jungle cat and Bengal hybrids suddenly became purebred Pixie-Bobs along with cats that were all or part American Bobtail, Japanese Bobtail, Manx, and Maine Coon.

Fuel was added to this fire several years ago when a jungle cat hybrid, El Gato del Oro, became the most awarded Pixie-Bob of all time. For competitive breeders, the message was clear. Tilting toward the jungle cat lines was the best way to add ribbons to your wall and get a high price for your kittens.

TICA registry also included a provision that cats believed to have bobcat ancestry or “Legend Cats” could be registered as Pixie-Bobs. This loophole allows breeders to register just about anything with the right look as a Pixie-Bob. There are strong rumors that standard practice for over a decade has been for a few jungle cat breeders to register their kittens as Chausies if they don’t come out with spots and register them as Pixie-Bob Legend Cats if they do.

Once Pixie-Bobs began to be recognized, the American Bobtail breeders had a problem. They weren’t shy about touting their own bobcat legend, but one look at their cats and no one believed it. These cats looked like domestics and even came in a wide range of colors. They had the fine fur of a domestic and few if any even had spots. Pixie-Bobs on the other hand had spots and coloration that was closer to a bobcat. They were also hard bodies with coarser fur. If you’re looking for a cat bred to resemble a bobcat or something wild, the American Bobtails weren’t it.

For some American Bobtail breeders, the response was the CFA American Bobtail. For others, it was the Desert Lynx. The Desert Lynx breeders were smart enough to realize that Pixie-Bobs had problems of their own. Most Pixie-Bobs looked like something wild but the jungle cats and Bengals in the mix don’t look much like bobcats. The other problem is that, if you’re trying to remind someone of a bobcat, size matters and most Pixie-Bobs are simply too small.

Some Desert Lynx breeders also used jungle cats and/or Bengals to produce the needed spots. A few others weren’t shy about using Pixie-Bobs and Legend Cats. For the better Desert Lynx breeders, the magic ingredient was a generous helping of Maine Coon. These are the largest domestics and the only ones that the tufts of fur that make them resemble a member of the lynx family. Desert lynx with this background are larger than Pixie-Bobs and appear to do a better job of capturing the shaggy look and overall features of a bobcat. A Maine Coon’s laid-back temperament is also the perfect offset for high-strung wild hybrids.

Although it’s not yet possible to run a genetic test and determine if a cat is part bobcat, U.C. Davis is now able to test for parentage. From a large sample of cats, it’s easy to determine which two produced a given kitten. No one questions that it’s possible to cross a domestic cat with an Asian Leopard Cat, jungle cat, Serval, or several other wild cats because these hybrid breeders usually have the wild cat available and are willing to prove their claims with a genetic test. With bobcat hybrids, the bobcat is invariably missing, and proof consists of a well-rehearsed legend. For some folks, however, that’s proof enough.

In spite of the legend, feral cats are a more likely explanation for suspicious matings with domestics. According to some estimates, there are around 75 feral cats in the wild for every bobcat. Although these are domestics gone native, they’re wild in every sense of the word. Unlike most breeders, nature selects for the biggest, strongest, and smartest. Feral cats are also evolving and reports of cats weighing 25-pound aren’t uncommon. These would be able to successfully mate with a domestic, but might also leave it pretty scratched up.

Carol Brewer has spent decades trying to prove her legend, but even she admitted that no one has successfully crossed a bobcat and a domestic in captivity and there’s no rational reason for the outcome to be any different in the wild. In parts of the world where wild cats can breed with domestics, the wild cats are losing their distinctive features. According to Wild Cats of the World by Mel & Fiona Sunquist, this is happening to the African wildcat and several others. Although feral cats overwhelmingly outnumber bobcats in the wild, the fact that bobcats look the same as they did 100 years ago strongly implies that successful matings aren’t occurring.

By telling breed organizations that Pixie-Bobs aren’t wild hybrids and strongly suggesting the opposite to the public, Pixie-Bob breeders have a huge credibility problem. All the drama notwithstanding, the question of what’s really in Pixie-Bobs and other bobcat wannabes will be solved by science. The feline genome is being mapped, and genetic testing will eventually be able to settle the issue of whether or not there’s such a thing as a bobcat hybrid as well as identifying the makeup of these hybrids. My guess is there’s a 99% chance no bobcat will be found in any of these cats, but I have mixed emotions about the question finally being answered. Hey, everyone enjoys a good legend.