United States Feline Associations

The associative feline world in the United States have a more complex history and structure, in part for geographical reasons.

The first feline organization was the American cat club, created 1896, although later it would be dissolved.

The oldest organization still existing today in the United States is the cat fanciers’ association (CFA), founded in 1906, but since then there are many feline associations in the country.

If well this decentralization may have some inconveniences, the advantage is that the United States system permits a greater variety of exhibitions and it presents a more liberal attitude at the time of accepting new breeds.

International Feline Federation
The feline tradition in continental Europe goes back to the end of the XIX Century and to the beginning of the XX Century, when several clubs and associations were founded. However, until 1949 there wasn’t any international European organism. In the year it was celebrated in Paris a reunion among the delegations of the federation feline Helvetic, the Federation Feline Francaise and The Societa Felina Italiana that resulted in the non official founding of the International Feline Federation was the Clube Brasileiro do Gato, in 1972. Actually the IFF has 39 members of 37 countries from three different continents.

The associations that are members of the IFF are autonomous federations. Some of them even have affiliated associations that have chosen to follow the same rules respecting the standard of race, exhibitions, judges, etc.

Associations Around The World
In most of the western countries the feline associations are well organized, if well it is usual for national association to file as members of other entities, like the IFF or the TICA, and to adopt as own their norms, especially in what is referred as standardization and acknowledgment of breeds.

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