American Shorthair vs Persian — Side by Side

	American Shorthair	Persian
Lifespan	15-20 years	10-13 years
Size	Medium	Medium
Weight	8-15 lb	7-13 lb
Energy	Moderate	Low
Grooming	Low	High
Shedding	Low	High
With kids	Good with kids	With supervision

What actually separates them

Less hair on the sofa with the American Shorthair. More with the Persian.
Less brushing with the American Shorthair. More with the Persian.
Calmer of the two is the Persian. The one that needs more exercise is the American Shorthair.
American Shorthair tends to live longer — 15-20 years against 10-13 years.
With young children, American Shorthair is the safer default — Persian is listed as "With supervision".

The honest downside of each

American Shorthair

The 'all-American working cat' story implies a hardy, mixed-heritage constitution, but this is a closed pedigree bred like any other purebred, and Cornell's feline health center lists American Shorthair among the breeds with an elevated rate of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — the same silent heart disease people specifically worry about in Maine Coons.

Persian

The flat 'doll face' that wins in the show ring is extreme brachycephaly by another name, and it comes with lifelong breathing difficulty, constant tear overflow, and a kidney disease that historically affected roughly a third to half of the breed before genetic screening became common.

Read the full pages

American Shorthair · Persian
Health problems, origin and what living with each is actually like.