Animal actors

[Gary Sapp & Karen J.S.]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, artsylynda at a... wrote:
> In a message dated 6/14/2004 11:41:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com writes:
> I'm one wishes that JKR
> > would have used a British Shorthair rather than an American 
> Shorthair
> > for Prof. McGonagall...:)
> > 
> > Karen
> This was tacked onto the end of the post from the animal trainers
about the 
> bulldog.  There have been so many posts on the movie list lately
that I must 
> have missed this one.  How can you tell the cat was an American
Shorthair rather 
> than a British Shorthair?  I'm just curious -- we've always had
"barn cats" 
> some of which became house cats, so I don't know that much about cat
breeds 
> (other than the obvious ones, Siamese, Himalayan, Persian,
Shorthair, Rex, that have obvious differences).  Thanks in advance for
appeasing my curiosity!
> 
> 
> Lynda 
> * * *
> ". . .the cat's among the pixies now." Mrs. Figg, OoP
> 
> 
Both breeds are stocky, solid looking cats but the American shorthair
has bands or striping whereas most British shorthairs do not.  There
is a reference in SS/PS to the cat Mrs. McGongall transforms into as
having markings that look like spectacles, but it actually called a
tabby cat. I think one of the reasons an American shorthair was used
in the film is they didn't want to use the same type of cat twice.
Mrs. Norris (who I believe is a Maine coon)has tabby markings.  This
is just my guess, but if you are interested in checking out the
differences in the breeds, go to the Cat Fancier's website for photos.
http://www.cfainc.org/breeds/profiles/british.html  This brings up the
British shorthair page but you can go back one page and find the other
breeds' links.

The first cat pictured on this page is our friend's cat Harry Potter.
We have a son of his, named Gryffindor and a little girl named
Minerva.  

Hope this helps answer your question

Karen