Animal fancy

Animal fancy is a hobby involving the appreciation, promotion, or breeding of pet or domestic animals.

Fancy may include ownership, showing, animal sports and other competitions, and breeding. Hobbyists may simply collect specimens of the animal in appropriate enclosures (vivaria), such as an aquarium,terrarium, or aviary. Some fanciers keep hobby farms, or menageries (private zoos). There are many animal fancy clubs and associations in the world catering to everything from pigeons to Irish Wolfhounds. Fanciers and fancierdom may collectively be referred to as the fancy for that kind of animal, e.g. the cat fancy.

Animal-fancy hobbies include the keeping of animals considered exotic pets; a rapidly growing example is herpetoculture, the keeping of reptiles and amphibians.

Organizations

Some examples of international animal fancy organizations are:

Cat Fancy

Cat Fancy is the name of a popular North American monthly magazine dedicated to cats, owners of cats, and breeders of cats published by I-5 Publishing.

In late 2014, I-5 Publishing announced that the monthly magazines Cat Fancy and Dog Fancy would be cancelled, and replaced with alternating bimonthly issues of Catster and Dogster beginning in February 2015.

The magazine

The first issue was published in 1965. Since then, each issue has been dedicated to a certain breed, which is shown on the cover and on a poster inside. The magazine also has health tips, polls, editor's notes, stories written by cat owners, cat product information, cat themed fashions, and a cat picture gallery, among other features.

Cat Fancy's publishers also offer Dog Fancy for dogs and their owners. Cat Fancy magazine's main rival in North America is Cats and Kittens.

In 2007, Cat Fancy was awarded 14 Certificates of Excellence Awards at the 14th Annual Cat Writers' Association Awards Banquet.

Writers and editors