Country Living has an article on the smartest cat breeds, which you can read by clicking on the title below. Fifteen genius cats are listed. If you want an Einstein moggy, check them out!
An excerpt:
Any kind of mouser you might want, chances are (with a little bit of research), you can find it. Friendly or fluffy felines, big breed cats, or even rare, blue-coated ones—no matter the characteristic, there’s a breed out there with it. And that includes incredibly intelligent kitties! If the idea of adopting a furry, four-legged Felix that’s a bit of an egghead appeals, read on for our rundown of the 15 smartest cat breeds. It’s been curated by a line-up of vet experts, including Dr. Huyn Han and Dr. Nathaniel Rakestraw of Televets, a platform that connects pet parents with licensed veterinarians, and Dr. Liza Cahn, Veterinarian at Embrace Pet Insurance.
There’s no doubt that having a cat that’s sharp as a tack has its advantages. According to Dr. Rakestraw, “Owning a smart cat brings joys like interactive play, strong bonds, and endless entertainment from their curiosity…As a veterinarian who’s spent over 20 years working with cats of all breeds, I’ve seen how their smarts can shine through in clever ways. Cat intelligence is fascinating—they’re great at problem-solving, learning routines, and even manipulating their environment (or their owners) to get what they want.”
That’s not to say there are no challenges involved in having a kitty that’s more or less got the mind of toddler. Dr. Rakestraw says a super smart cat might do anything from opening childproof locks, to getting into mischief like knocking over vases, or demanding mental stimulation to avoid boredom. And it should be noted that many of the breeds on our list are pretty pricey, and may be difficult to find. But if you want a loving and lovely cat that’s no dummy, you’re sure get some great ideas below!
And here are supposedly the smartest cats (I’m dubious about the ranking), in order from the smartest to less smart, with quotes from the article:
- Siamese. They’re also not the quietest of felines, according to Dr. Han. “These guys have opinions,” she says. “And they will share them with you. They are chatty and can ‘talk.’ They are sharp and can learn tricks like opening doors.”
- Burmese. With origins in the country they’re named for (now known as Myanmar), this breed is spirited, super smart and physically strong. Count on them getting a regular case of the zoomies as much as craving a good cuddling sesh.
- Turkish Angora. Celebrated as the breed that inspired Duchess from Disney’s The Aristocats, the Turkish Angora is a “gorgeous little cat,” says Dr. Han. “You turn your back for 30 seconds, and suddenly they’re on top of the fridge. Give them a puzzle toy and they’ll bat at it until they crack it—usually faster than you’d like to admit.”
- Balinese. Dr. Han terms them “Talkative cuddlebugs…they learn schedules well! They will be sitting by the door five minutes before you get home from work, every day, like clockwork.”
- Persian. This breed, which has origins in ancient Persia, can be expensive, costing as much as $5,000. But for that pretty penny, you receive a mellow, devoted (and glamorous) furbaby that gets along well with other pets and young children.
- Abyssinian. Dr. Cahn calls Abyssinians “Curious, independent, and intelligent,” adding that “this breed often prefers to explore and interact with their environment and can benefit from high perches, cat furniture, and puzzle toys.”
- Korat. The clever Korat, which dates back some 700 years, was historically gifted to Thai brides. Nowadays, this kitty is prized for his beautiful, silvery coat and big luminous green eyes. They’re also extremely sociable and bond strongly with their people.
- Cornish Rex. If you’re looking for a kitty that stands out from the crowd, the Cornish Rex is a good go-to. “These wavy-coated cats can learn commands or even walk on leashes,” Dr. Rakestraw says. “They have a playful, affectionate nature and their soft, curly fur needs minimal grooming, making them easy to care for despite their boundless curiosity.”
- Bengal. Speaking of truly striking kitties, the Bengal looks like a little leopard—and with good reason. “A result of crossing Asian Leopard Cats with domestic cats in the 1960s, Bengals are an exotic breed known for their intelligence, curiosity, and love of water,” Dr. Cahn explains. “These cats are extremely high-energy and require significant interactive play and environmental enrichment, so they often do best with experienced cat owners.”
- Savannah. “Savannahs are geniuses at athletic feats like high jumps, or puzzle-solving for fun,” says Dr. Rakestraw. “They’re bold, loyal adventurers with spotted coats and large ears, but their high energy and size mean they’re not easy for novice owners, needing space and stimulation.”
- Havana Brown.According to Dr Cahn, Havana Browns are typically, lively, curious, and adaptable. “These cats thrive on interactive play and companionship,” she adds. “Known for a softer meow, they often use their paws to explore and communicate.”
- Singapura. Action-oriented and sometimes a bit bossy, the rare Singapura is surprisingly strong and solid for his small stature (a female may weigh just 4 pounds). They are generally very healthy cats.
- Scottish Fold. The breed’s folded ears, as Dr. Rakestraw notes, are the result of a Scottish mutation that appeared in the 1960s. “These cats show intelligence by forming emotional connections and adapting to training,” he adds. “They’re gentle sweethearts that are easy to maintain, but ear care is key to prevent issues.”
- Japanese Bobtail. They make excellent pets, with Dr. Cahn calling the Bobtail “good-natured, playful, outgoing, and intelligent. These petite cats with short tails (often called a pom) are quick learners and love interactive play.” As comfortable with dogs as they are with children, the Bobtail is an agile jumper with an independent streak. The former pampered pet of nobles, he is known in Japan as a good luck cat.
- Tonkinese. Tonkinese are the happy result of breeding Siamese and Burmese cats together, and are characterized by an outgoing nature that is surprisingly sensitive to their humans’ moods. “They’re playful, people-oriented extroverts making them fun and fairly easy to care for,” says Dr. Rakestraw.
If you have one of these breeds, please weigh in below. Does your cat conform to its description above?
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Family Desinations Guide sends us to the small town of Sylva, North Carolina, which harbors a wonderful cat museum: the American Museum of the House Cat. Click below to read about it, and see the link in the previous sentence.
An excerpt:
I’ve discovered a place where cat worship isn’t just an internet phenomenon—it’s a full-blown museum experience tucked away in the mountains of western North Carolina.
The American Museum of the House Cat in Sylva stands as possibly the most gloriously specific collection you never knew you needed to visit.
In a world where museums celebrate everything from bananas to barbed wire, this feline sanctuary might just be the most charmingly obsessive collection I’ve ever encountered.
The journey to find this cat-lover’s paradise feels like being initiated into a secret society.
As you navigate the winding roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains, surrounded by breathtaking Appalachian scenery, you might wonder if your GPS has led you astray.
Then suddenly, like a beacon to cat-enthusiast pilgrims, a roadside sign featuring a sweet white cat face appears, confirming you’re on the right track.
The museum’s exterior doesn’t immediately scream “world-class collection of historical feline artifacts.”
Housed in a modest wooden structure that could easily be mistaken for a local craft shop, its humble appearance only makes what awaits inside all the more surprising.
Before you even step through the door, you’re greeted by the museum’s most photographed feature—an enormous painted cat face surrounding the entrance:
The American Museum of the House Cat was founded by Harold Sims, known affectionately as “The Cat Man”—a title that in most contexts might raise eyebrows but here seems perfectly fitting.
A retired biology professor with a genuine passion for cat rescue, Sims created this museum with a brilliant dual purpose: showcasing his extensive collection of cat memorabilia while generating funds for his no-kill cat shelter, Catman2.
Your admission fee directly helps save real cats in need—perhaps the most purr-fect example of mission alignment I’ve ever encountered.
Once inside, the sheer magnitude of the collection immediately overwhelms your senses—over 10,000 cat-related items spanning centuries and continents.
Display cases overflow with treasures, walls are covered from floor to ceiling with cat art, and every conceivable surface hosts some form of feline tribute.
The space isn’t organized like a conventional museum with minimalist displays and carefully measured distances between exhibits.
Instead, it feels like you’ve wandered into the ultimate cat enthusiast’s attic, if that enthusiast happened to be an extraordinarily thorough historian with connections to archaeological digs worldwide.
. . . .Moving through the museum, you’ll discover an impressive array of cat-themed advertising memorabilia spanning the late 19th century through the mid-20th century.
Cats were apparently the influencers of their day, lending their photogenic appeal to everything from cleaning products to tobacco.
There’s something delightfully ironic about cats, creatures notorious for knocking things off shelves, being used to sell household goods that one presumably wants to remain intact.
The vintage cat food advertisements chart the remarkable evolution from “give your cat whatever table scraps you have” to “your discerning feline deserves wild-caught salmon with organic catnip reduction.”
They reveal how our relationship with cats transformed from keeping them around as mousers to treating them as beloved family members deserving of specialized nutrition and heated beds.
Art enthusiasts will appreciate the museum’s vast collection of cat paintings, prints, and sculptures spanning various periods and artistic movements.
The article has a ton more photos, but here’s a video that sums it up. If you’re an ailurophile, and happen to be near Sylva, pull out your ten bucks and get a ticket.
Here’s where Sylva is (red dot), population 2,578 as of 2020:
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CTV News in Canada introduces us to a very beloved cat, although she’s deaf (but also polydactylous). It’s MITTENS! Click below to read:
An excerpt:
At the far end of Vancouver’s bustling English Bay beach, a steady stream of curious onlookers gravitates toward a large tree stump.
Sitting on top is Mittens, a fluffy white cat wearing a bright yellow hat.
Unlike many of her species, Mittens seems totally unfazed by the constant attention from strangers, even those who reach up to give her a pet.
“Mittens is deaf,” notes her owner, Mark Nemethy. “Maybe that’s why she doesn’t get scared.”
The unusual cat has become a local celebrity this summer. Many evenings around sunset, Nemethy will place her down in the sand near the Cactus Club Cafe, and follow her as she struts directly to her favourite perch – which she scales on her own with ease, helped by her polydactyl paws.
Her arrival is sometimes heralded on the West End’s neighbourhood Facebook group.
“Mittens is heading down to the beach NOW,” one member wrote last week, garnering dozens of reactions and comments.
“Has anyone seen Mittens the cat lately,” inquired another the week before.
Like many stars, she comes from humble beginnings.
Nemethy, a 61-year-old carpenter and lifelong cat-lover, said he adopted Mittens from a friend who had discovered her in a precarious position.
“She found that cat in a dumpster in Kitsilano during COVID,” he said. “How she got in there, who knows.”
Nemethy quickly realized Mittens had a uniquely friendly personality, a stark contrast to his other cat, Miranda.
“She’s a big tabby that’s afraid to go outside,” he said of Mittens’ sister. “If you put a hat on her, she’d rip it apart.”
. . . . What Nemethy loves is seeing the way Mittens will brighten people’s day – especially those who really need a pick-me-up.
He recalled being at a local McDonald’s – Mittens has a preferred seat there as well – when a woman crying on the street saw them through the window and came inside.
“She said, ‘Can I sit with your cat for a little while?’” Nemethy said. “She was crying away. Then she thanked me very much and left. I didn’t ask what her situation was.”
Similar encounters happen routinely at the beach, Nemethy said – people tell him they’re going through a rough time, they pet Mittens, and they walk away feeling a little less gloomy.
“She could bring world peace, I think, this cat,” he added. “She could be on the cover of Time with her little yellow hat.”
For now, Nemethy is building an Instagram following for Mittens, and thinking of other ways to spread her particular brand of joy.
“This cat would be really good for a children’s hospital or something,” he mused. “Maybe that’ll be one of her adventures.”
Mittens’s Instagram page is here, and here’s a recent post (click to go to original)
. . . and here’s a video of Mittens:
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Lagniappe: Look at my awesome cat shirt, which I believe I also posted yesterday! This was a gift of Jango the Cat in Florida, and sports his visage!
Yes, the cat on the shirt is in fact Jango, the beloved cat of readers Divy and Ivan. Here’s the model and the shirt before it was given to me on my last birthday:
The photo of Jango used on the shirt:
h/t: Howie, Lianne
Three of our four cats (z”ll) were domestic shorthairs—tabbies! They were smart and lovable. The fourth was a longhair, probably part Angora, but not a purebred. He was mentally ill and a huge pain. Going further would take many paragraphs, so I will spare everyone. If our tabbies were smart, I can’t even imagine the brains of the others. My wife had Siamese cats as a kid. They were indeed talkative, as have been all the Siamese I’ve encountered.
Love the cat museum! I’ve never been there even though I lived within driving distance. It may not have been around at that time, otherwise I’d probably have heard of it. The owner—a professor—has the strangest voice! His lips move, but words are barely discernible. I’m sure that his rescue cats understand hi, which is all that matters after all.
Ah yes, The Cat in the Hat. That and its sequel, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, were favorites as a kid. My mother read them to me, and it helped me to learn to read even before I started school. Green Eggs and Ham? My mother read it a couple of times, but the repetition and alliteration drove her mad. She eventually refused to read it. By that time I could read it myself, aloud, which also drove her mad.
That is a great shirt. Everyone should have a cat shirt.
Am feeling you on having a mentally challenging cat. Once I brought her home and made a commitment to her, I could not bring myself to put her down. No one else would have adopted her with her problems.
Yeah. It can be awful. Ours, an indoor cat, would dash out the door and run. We couldn’t catch it, but had to just wait until it came back to the front door. We were always expecting the cat to die in the traffic. Later in life, it became so anxious that we could only go near it on occasion. Even later, it started urinating on the electric baseboard heaters—a smell so bad it’s hard to imagine. It had kidney disease, part of the reason for urinating in the wrong places—but we couldn’t pill him without getting bitten—and even then the pill didn’t do down. We should have gotten him some sort of anti-anxiety medication, but I don’t know if that was available. All our other cats—three over the years—were wonderful pets and a joy to live with. This cat? Mentally ill.
The list of smartest cats left off the Silver American Tabby. They have a very distinct “M” on their heads and a very distinct Circle or Bullseye on their sides. One we had in the 70s learned how to open the basement door by jumping up to turn the doorknob. It then went down there to jump up onto the seat of a chair placed under a table and sleep there all night. That cat at first irritated my father, who thought cats belonged outside. That persistant feline eventually became “my father’s cat,” following him from room to room.
The cat museum looks interesting, if I’m ever in the vicinity.
Happy Caturday everyone. 🐈🐈🐈
Interesting cat museum.
The shirt looks good on you, Jerry. Jango approves 😻
What a wonderful shirt–very appropriate for Professor Ceiling Cat!
Mittens looks like a wonderful cat and is no doubt so chill because she can’t hear any noise that might be going on around her.
I’ve never had any of the “smartest” cats, but I’ve had some very smart short hairs. Several of them have learned commands in German. One knew “erzähl mir was!” (“tell me something”), whereon she started talking and kept on talking as long as I was participating. Another knew the German commands for “turn around, sit down, stand up, and say something.” He was used to the string of commands before meals and never missed. So “ordinary” cats are also capable of a lot if one is patient.
We had a Siamese, an American shorthair, and a Maine Coon, all from shelters. The Siamese was smart, but had emotional problems. She was a beauty, appeared to be 100% Siamese. Managing her high-strung nature was a lot of effort. She was quiet until the other 2 cats died, then she got louder. The Main Coon was probably a mix. She was the most aggressive and was very bright. Used her smarts and size to make sure the other 2 knew they were beta. That’s her portrait in my PFP. The shorthair was not too bright but was affectionate and playful like a kitten to the end. She made me laugh everyday.
That shirt is something! It is quite the attention-grabber and must start conversations when you wear it out in public.
Loved the cat in the yellow hat. Can’t say anyone who discovers her part of the beach is “one big litterbox” would much appreciate that…
The two cats I am presently kept by are both pretty smart. The indoor boy (going on 15yrs) required a child lock on the refrigerator until he was about 5, and only recently gave up opening doors by turning the knobs. The 7.5Kg outdoor boy is maybe eight or nine, and came to me three years ago after being abandoned by the `rescue’ caring for him. He happily tackles me to get on my lap, works the neighbors for fusses, and keeps the neighborhood rodent free. I came home today (had a morning job) to find him dining on tartare lapin aux entraille. This was a big one, and a long tern scourge of the neighborhood gardens.
Maybe I’ll get some carrots and peppers from my garden next year. Stinking rabbit ate the greens off nearly every plant.
Cat I cared for in college came to me from a relative that thought getting the cat drunk was funny. Every deal with an alcoholic cat going through the DT’s? I do not recommend. That was not a smart cat, but I suspect the depth of stupid he exhibited was damage from the alcohol.
That was not a smart cat, but I suspect the depth of stupid he exhibited was damage from the alcohol.
Good grief, who would do that to a cat?
Regardless, thanks to our host for another great Caturday felid trifecta.
Our family has had a tradition dating back three generations of owning (i.e., being staff members for) Siamese cats. We have usually, though not exclusively, favored the original variety of Siamese, known as “traditional” or “applehead” Siamese, and these days called (at least in breeder or enthusiast circles) the “Thai” or “Wichien Maat” breed.
These are distinct from the “modern” or “wedgehead”, or to use my description, “space alien” version that was essentially created as a separate breed by zealous cat show breeders. It is this version that has unfortunately (mis)appropriated the name Siamese. (It remains odd to me that the original version of the breed is now called Thai, while the modern offshoot has been allowed the name Siamese, but whatever). But I think most people are not generally aware of this distinction, so it can be hard to know how specific someone is being when they make a casual reference to “Siamese”. (To be clear, I am not a breeder, just a cat lover.)
Anyway, I have found both Thai and Siamese to be very smart, though the former are usually not quite as talkative as their space alien cousins. Thai cats are extremely affectionate, and they invariably become integral family members that will run to greet us at the door, hang out with us and generally shower us with love, while retaining a substantial measure of classic cat inscrutability.
Our beloved Nigel passed away not long ago after 17 years of benevolent rule, and his successor will accede to the throne shortly. It will be our honor to serve him.
It’s intriguing that the majority of ‘smartest’ breeds are Southeast Asian. Somewhere I read that that’s the one region of the world where breeding of cats by humans resulted in truly novel phenotypes, because there were no wild Felis sylvestris available for backcrossing. If that story is true, then perhaps the form of intelligence reported by these vet experts is behavioral flexibility in novel human-created environments, selected for over long periods of domestication. Other breeds may be ‘smarter’ at the traditional tasks of wild felids.
I had two Siamese cats when I was a child (not simultaneously.) Both were intelligent, affectionate, and talkative. One would meet me every day as I walked home from the school bus stop.
I’ve often wondered what would happen if we bred cats strictly for intelligence. If we disregarded looks and simply selected for intelligence, how smart would the resulting breed be? And would they take over?
The best thing about a pair of siamese siblings I inherited when my mother died was that they would crawl deep into the bed with us and act as hot water bottles. Before that we had a burmese who was a dangerous psychopath. Friendliest cat ever was a Russian blue; he was huge and calm.