The Selkirk is the newest Rex breed to be recognized by the North American cat associations and has been around a relatively short time compared with the Cornish Rex and the Devon Rex. The Selkirk’s development and promotion were due primarily to the efforts of breeder Jeri Newman of the Noface Cattery in Livington, Montana, although many other dedicated breeders lent a hand in furthering the breed. Newman, a Persian breeder for many years, had always been fascinated by cats in general and feline genetics in particular, made it known to friends and family that she was interested in adopting cats that were in any way out of the ordinary. In 1987, the out-of-the-ordinary came to her.

At the For Pet’s Sake Animal Shelter in Sheridan, Montana, run out of the home of animal lover Kitty Garrett Brown, a cat gave birth to a litter of six—five kittens plus one kitten with a curly coat as plush and huggable as a child’s stuffed toy. Peggy Vorrhees of the Bozeman Humane Society of Sheridan, Montana brought the kitten to Jeri Newman because she thought Newman would be interested in the unusual-coated cat. Indeed she was. The blue-cream and white kitten with the alert green eyes and the extraordinary curly coat resembling lamb’s wool caught Newman’s immediate attention.

At an estimated age of ten months, the cat’s whiskers were curly, her ears were full of brillo-like hair, and her coat looked like she’d just had a perm. Newman named the cat Miss DePesto because she was always pestering Newman for attention. When “Pest” came of age, Newman bred her. The mating produced a litter of six, three of which had the distinctive curly coat. Since Newman had studied genetic inheritance, she knew this meant the gene governing the curly coat was dominant—only one parent needed to possess the gene for the trait to appear in at least some of the offspring. That litter also included one straight-haired kitten with long hair. Interesting, Newman thought. Not only did Pest carry the dominant curly-coat gene, but also the recessive gene for long hair, since both parents had to possess at least one copy of the longhair gene to produce longhaired offspring.

Newman named the breed the Selkirk Rex after her stepfather. However, for a time she said the breed was named after the Selkirk Mountains, because they were near where the kittens were born. However, when pointed out to her that the Selkirk Mountains were in British Columbia, she admitted to naming the breed after her stepfather; the Selkirk Rex is the only cat breed named after an individual.