Persians are the status cat here and they are also the highest-maintenance option in a hot humid country, which is a bad combination for someone's first cat.
Roughly:
- Persian — needs daily grooming or the coat mats, flat face means eye discharge and sometimes breathing trouble, prone to skin and fungal problems in humidity, and expensive to buy.
- Semi-Persian / Persian cross — much of the look, a longer nose, usually hardier, far cheaper.
- Desi billi — free, tough, short coat that needs nothing, and generally a cat that has already survived everything this climate does.
Prices for Persian kittens run anywhere from around Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000 and up in Lahore, and there is a large gap between the healthy end and the cheap end of that range.
First-time owners: what did you start with, and did the grooming turn out to be more work than you expected?