History of the Norwegian forest cat (NFO) in Finland

The first Norwegian forest cat was imported from Norway to Finland in 1979 and the first kittens were born two years later. Over 6000 Norwegian forest cats have been registered in Finland since then. Most year the number of registered cats is 200–300. Norjalainen metsäkissa ry was founded in 1989, but an active club for Norwegian forest cat fanciers was operating even earlier under SUROK, a Finnish cat association. We operate under the Finnish FIFe member Suomen Kissaliitto.

The intention of Norjalainen metsäkissa ry is topromote the breeding of the Norwegian forest catmake Norwegian forest cats known as a breedoperate as a link between the breeders, owners and all friends of Norwegian forest cats. Sharing information and advice, arranging club meetings and shows as well as having close relations to associations both in Finland and throughout the world are the main tasks of the club.


Joining the club

To get more information on Norjalainen metsäkissa ry, please contact either the board members or info.norjalainenmetsakissa@gmail.com The club magazine called METTIS is issued 4 times a year.


Health & breeding

Health is a very important aspect of breeding for Finnish NFO breeders. This can be seen e.g. in our kitten list format - it shows which diseases the parents have been tested for. Finnish breeders are also actively participating in the Cat Gene Bank Project,
run by professor Hannes Lohi, and there are already over 350 samples from Norwegian Forest Cats in the bank. The club supports its members’ participation by refunding the sample taking costs. Purr to Sciense!

Norjalainen metsäkissa ry is working on adding all NFOs ever registered under Suomen Kissaliitto to PawPeds. We are also committed to the PawPeds HCM health program. The club is working on creating an extensive Breeding Target Programme including information on the breed’s history, population, health, standard and the threats and goals related to breeding. The program will be completed in 2014 and updated continuoulsy thereafter. It is based on a health survey where we managed to get answers from over 600 Finnish
NFOs.


Kittens

The club keeps a list of all available registered Norwegian forest cats for sale. It can be found on our website, as well as the list of breeders. On the kitten list you can see which diseases the parents have been tested for. (HCM, GSD IV, FIV, FelV).
To the kitten list
To the breeder list


A short ENG-FIN vocabulary for navigating Finnish breeder websites:

Males - urokset
Females - naaraat
Kittens - pennut
Plans - suunnitelmat
Available - vapaa
Reserved/booked - varattu
Sold - myyty
Boy - poika
Girl - tyttö
Pedigree - sukutaulu