Whether you can breed the cat you own comes down to two dates in the CFA rulebook.
American Shorthair
American Shorthair
American Shorthair
American Shorthair mix
American Shorthair
American Shorthair
American Shorthair
American Shorthair
American Shorthair cat breeding starts with a question that sounds odd until you open the rulebook: is your cat actually one? The registry accepts no outcrosses, has required both parents to be registered since 1985, and checks five generations back. One narrow route in still exists. The cats above are American Shorthairs whose owners are looking for a match.
Can this cat be registered as an American Shorthair?
Read the blocking rows carefully. CFA applies them to every cat in the background, not only to the cat being registered. A chocolate great-grandparent blocks a cat that is not chocolate itself.[1]
Short answer
Only if both of its parents are registered American Shorthairs. The Cat Fanciers’ Association closed that door on 1 May 1985. Before that date, cats with unknown or unregistered parents could be entered. Since then they cannot, and the breed accepts no outcrosses to any other breed.
The rule is written plainly in the breed’s own registration document. CFA records that from 1 May 1985, “both parents must be registered. Unknown or unregistered parents no longer accepted.”[1] The same document lists the allowable outcross breeds for the American Shorthair as none. An outcross is a mating to a cat of a different breed, and most pedigree cat breeds permit at least one. This one permits zero.
Two things follow, and they surprise people. You cannot create a registerable American Shorthair by mating two cats that happen to look like the breed standard. You also cannot improve your line by borrowing a British Shorthair, which comes up often because the two breeds look related in photographs. On paper they are kept entirely separate.
This matters more here than for most breeds because the American Shorthair is genuinely popular. It sits ninth on the CFA’s latest published list of most-registered breeds.[3] Sellers attach a popular name loosely, and a great many cats sold or listed as American Shorthairs are ordinary short-haired cats with no registered ancestry.
That is not an insult to the cat. It is a statement about paperwork, and it decides one thing: whether a litter can be registered. If your cat has no registered parents, the page you actually need is breeding a domestic shorthair, which covers the same cat without the pedigree. If you would rather buy a registered cat than breed the one you have, start with American Shorthair kittens for sale.
Short answer
There is a route, and almost nobody knows it exists. Since 15 February 1986 CFA has allowed a street cat to be registered with a special form and the Breed Council’s approval. It is a case-by-case decision made by people who know the breed, not a form you file and forget.
The breed note reads: “Effective 2/15/86 it would be possible to register a street cat with special form and Breed Council OK. Contact Breed Council Secretary for specific requirements.”[1] A Breed Council is the group of active breeders CFA recognises as the authority on a single breed.
The door exists because of where the breed came from. American Shorthairs descend from working cats that arrived with early settlers and earned their keep controlling rodents. CFA recognised them in 1906, and they were shown as “Domestic Shorthairs” until 1965. The name changed that year to separate them from the ordinary short-haired cats they had been drawn from.[2] CFA built this breed out of street cats, and it kept one narrow way for street cats to come back in.
Be realistic about it. CFA publishes no public criteria for approval, no timeline, and no success rate. The rules document says only to contact the Breed Council Secretary. This is a discretionary decision by a committee of breeders, and it is not a routine path.
That matters if you are buying. A seller who says their unregistered cat “can be registered” is describing a committee decision that has not happened yet. Ask to see the papers that exist today, not the ones that might.
Short answer
Less than you would expect, so far. In the largest genetic survey of cat breeds, American Shorthairs carried more genetic variety than the average pedigree cat, though still less than a random-bred one. The catch is that the breed has no way to bring in new blood if that changes.
A 2008 survey compared 22 cat breeds against random-bred cat populations on five continents.[4] The measure it used is heterozygosity, which is how much genetic variety the average cat in a population carries. Higher is healthier.
American Shorthair genetic diversity, against the benchmarks
So this breed sits above the pedigree average and below an ordinary moggy. That is a better result than you might expect from a closed studbook, the official register of cats that belong to a breed. Treat it as a signal rather than a settled figure, because the survey covered only thirteen American Shorthairs. Thirteen cats is a thin basis for a claim about a whole breed, and it is the only breed-level measurement that exists.
The part that should shape your decisions is not the number. It is the structure. A breed with no permitted outcross cannot import variety later if a problem emerges. Every future generation has to come from cats already inside the studbook. That is an argument for keeping matings as unrelated as you can manage now, while the numbers are still good, rather than after they are not.
Short answer
Two respected sources disagree, and the reason is worth knowing. Cornell lists the American Shorthair among breeds prone to heart muscle disease. The 2020 veterinary cardiology consensus does not. Both are reading the same thin evidence, because nobody has published a study measuring how common it is in this breed.
The condition in question is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle wall. It is the commonest heart disease in cats of every kind. The question here is only whether this breed carries more of it than average.
Where the two authorities land
Neither is wrong. They are answering slightly different questions. Cornell includes breeds with any reported family history[5], while the consensus panel keeps to a narrower list tied to stronger evidence.[6] A reader who saw only one of them would think the matter was settled.
The concern traces back to cases reported decades ago. CFA, the breed’s own registry, puts it this way: “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was noted in some cats in the 1980s and 90s, but thanks to preventive testing and selective breeding, it has largely disappeared.”[2] Read that knowing who wrote it. No study has since measured how common the condition is in American Shorthairs, so nobody, including CFA, can point to a number.
You will find one anyway. A figure putting roughly a quarter of the breed at risk circulates across pet-care sites and insurance blogs. No published study supports it. It should not drive your breeding decisions, and neither should CFA’s reassurance.
One part of this is not in doubt, and you can act on it. There is no DNA test for this breed. The two validated feline heart gene tests screen mutations found in Maine Coons and Ragdolls, and the consensus panel says testing for them outside those breeds is not recommended.[6] A certificate citing those tests on an American Shorthair tested the wrong thing. An echocardiogram, an ultrasound scan of the heart, is the only tool that screens this breed, and no registry requires one.
So screen before you breed. The reason is not a frightening statistic. It is that the evidence base for this breed is thin. A scan is the only thing that would tell you, and nobody is going to make you do it.
Two of these are specific to the American Shorthair. The rest of the pre-mating workup is the same for any cat. Rather than repeat it here, read the domestic shorthair breeding page, which covers infectious disease screening, parasite treatment and vaccination timing.
Any one of these is a reason to stop and reconsider rather than press on.
If the answer turns out to be no, that is a real outcome rather than a failure. An American Shorthair that never has a litter loses nothing, and an adult cat looking for a home is a better match for many households than a kitten. You can rehome or adopt an American Shorthair through the same platform.
Petmeetly connects owners to each other. If you do go ahead, the honest first step is confirming what you actually own, and the second is finding an owner who checks as carefully as you do.
You can mate the cat, but the kittens cannot be registered as American Shorthairs. The Cat Fanciers’ Association has required both parents to be registered since 1 May 1985. Kittens from an unregistered cat are domestic shorthairs, which is a description of a cat rather than a breed.
Paperwork, and a closed gene pool behind it. An American Shorthair is a registered pedigree cat with five generations of recorded ancestry. A domestic shorthair is any short-haired cat of mixed or unknown ancestry. The two can look identical, and many cats sold as American Shorthairs are domestic shorthairs.
Five generations. The registration rules set a five-generation pedigree requirement for this breed. The disqualifying colours and coat types apply to every cat in that pedigree, not only to the cat being registered.
Not if you want registered kittens. The CFA registration rules list no allowable outcross breeds for the American Shorthair, so any mating outside the breed produces kittens that cannot be registered. The two breeds look related in photographs and are kept separate on paper.
Those colours sit outside the breed’s accepted range, and CFA refuses them anywhere in the background. A cat that is not chocolate itself can still be refused if a chocolate ancestor appears in its five-generation pedigree.
No. Spotted tabby markings appear on the CFA list of patterns that are not accepted for this breed, alongside pointed patterns and any chocolate or lilac colouring. Silver tabby and brown tabby are both on the accepted list.
It still blocks registration. CFA applies the do-not-accept list to cats in the background, not only to the cat in front of you. The pedigree requirement for this breed runs to five generations. Check the whole pedigree before you plan a mating, not just the parents.
No registry requires it, and it is still worth doing. Two authoritative sources disagree about whether this breed is prone to heart muscle disease. Cornell lists it among predisposed breeds and the 2020 veterinary cardiology consensus does not. Nobody has published a study measuring how common it is here.
No. The two validated feline heart gene tests screen mutations found in Maine Coons and Ragdolls. A certificate citing those tests tells you nothing about an American Shorthair. An echocardiogram, an ultrasound scan of the heart, is the only tool that screens this breed.
Not on the evidence so far. The largest genetic survey of cat breeds found American Shorthairs carrying more genetic variety than the average pedigree breed, though less than random-bred cats. That survey covered only thirteen cats, so treat it as a signal rather than a settled figure.
No study has measured life expectancy for this breed. Figures of fifteen to twenty years circulate widely with no source behind them. The nearest real data is a UK study putting cat life expectancy at 11.7 years from birth, with pedigree cats living over 1.5 years less than crossbred cats.
When the cat cannot be registered and pedigree kittens were the point, when either cat has an abnormal heart scan, or when a disqualifying colour sits anywhere in five generations. Unregistered kittens are good cats, and they will not sell as pedigree kittens.
Sources
Fact-checked against the CFA registration rules, the ACVIM, the Cornell Feline Health Center, the VetCompass programme, and peer-reviewed genetic research.
Real stories from cat owners who found perfect breeding matches on Petmeetly
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Melisa
Washington, US
Victor was an amazing match, and his owner was super helpful and accommodating!
Hannah
Washington, US
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Betsy Aird
California, US
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