A Pet's View / June 2007
Cats in Living Color
There are over seventy breeds of cats recognized by various cat registries and a cat must have a traceable lineage going back several generations to be registered as a pedigreed cat. Most cat owners don’t have the luxury of ancestral tracking, and are content to answer the breed question with ‘alley cat’ or ‘tabby cat’. Hopefully, the alley cats will all find good homes, and lose their undesirable designation. Cats with identifiable features which indicate a pedigreed cat somewhere in its background are called mixed breed. Maine Coon mix, Persian mix, and Siamese mix are common mixed breeds. At the vets, any cat that isn’t known to be a particular breed, is a Domestic Shorthair, a Domestic Longhair or a Domestic Medium length hair. It’s inelegant, but accurate. Tabby describes not a breed, but rather a pattern.
Whether they are pedigreed or domestic, cats come in a rainbow of genetically determined colors and patterns that surprise and delight cat enthusiasts. A calico mother might give birth in one litter to calico, tabby, and solid or bi-colored kittens, depending on her heritage and her mate’s genetic background. It’s all about genetics, so although cat color starts from three basic colors, predicting what the kittens will look like, even in the same litter, is a hopelessly lost cause.
The three colors are red – usually called orange, ginger, or marmalade, black, and white.
Tabby cats are the oldest, most common and most popular pattern seen, differentiated by their tripes, whorls, and spots. Striped tabbies are often called “tigers”. A “classic” tabby has the round bulls-eye marking. Tabbies may also dsipaly white accessories, like a white bib or white boots.
Solid colored cats come in basic colors, as well as dilute colors of the basics like buff, grey or silver.
Calico cats are tri-colored with separate, solid blocks of color, that must include red or orange, black, and white. Dilute calicos, have the same color blocks only in paler shades. Tortiseshell cats weave their colors, mostly the black and red, together. Tortoiseshell cats may also be dilute, with softer versions of the colors. Like the tabby, torties may also have white accent markings. They sometimes have an interesting mix of tortoiseshell with tabby patterning and are called...torbies.
The genetic factors that create tri-colors, means tri-color cats are almost always females. Count on calicos to be girls.
Bi-color cats sometimes come formally attired. Tuxedo cats were named for their glossy black coats, accented by white bibs and “spats,” or white feet. Other bi-colors might include gray and white, brown and white, or red and white.
“Points,” or darker shades of the body color, are found at the ears, muzzle, tail, and feet of the cat. Siamese were the original pointed cats, though Himalayan, Ragdoll, Ragamuffin, Birman, Exotic, Balinese, and Javanese cats are also pointed. The distinctive points are displayed by many mixed breed cats.
Cats don’t need an expensive or exotic pedigree to be beautiful. What makes them look their best is great ‘jeans’.
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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