I made a decision at the cat show this weekend

sohni

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I am going to research an Oriental Shorthair alter for a second show cat... I LOVE THEM! I had never seen one in person before, and I couldn't stay away from their section. There was a trio of kittens, 2 grey spotted and 1 pointed torty. I got to help transport them to the rings a few times.

I'm sticking with Maus of course, but someday if I get an alter to show, it will be an Oriental boy.
 

goldenkitty45

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Think an Ocicat would be better - you only have a choice of 12 colors. OSH's have hundreds of colors to pick from. Will be very hard to narrow it down to what color.....


P.S. I love Orientals too. But I could never pick out just one color. I love solid blacks, spotted tabbys, tabby/whites, and saw a really cool looking lavender/white bicolor.

DH doesn't like the lavendar/fawn colors (on Ocicats or other breeds) cause he thinks they are too light colored.
 
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sohni

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Tsekani was up against a chocolate brown smoke Oriental in most of his rings, and the cat was spectacular. I'm lucky it was only entered in the Sunday shows.

I have narrowed down my colour choice in the Orientals to the darker ones, however. I like them all, but am not a huge fan of white/off-white cats. I'd probably be interested in sticking with spots or classic silver tabby. Or maybe the brown, or maybe ebony.....
 

goldenkitty45

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I fell in love with Typha's Nite Sprite. Was a super gorgeous black male with a shine on his coat you could see across the room. Then friends of ours had a really nice red spotted tabby I wanted. But my ex-husband didn't want an OSH cause they were too loud...so I never got a chance to own one.

But see what I mean on the colors....the more you look the more you go "oh I like that color now".
 

epona

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Personally I like the selfs (solids) best - there are many breeds of cat that specialise in spots and stripes, and I think the OSH selfs just look more... I dunno, OSH I suppose! I can't pinpoint exactly why that is, maybe to me a tabby pattern draws they eye away from and breaks up the long lines of the cat? IMO the selfs look more... otherworldly... I'm having trouble explaining it, but I think the shape of the cat lends itself better to solid colour.

My favourites are the blues and lilacs (naturally as I have one of each
) but I do also love the cinnamon oriental, it is unusual to see a solid cinnamon cat. And there is just something ghostly and ethereal about the lilacs and fawns
 

abymummy

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Originally Posted by Epona

Personally I like the selfs (solids) best - there are many breeds of cat that specialise in spots and stripes, and I think the OSH selfs just look more... I dunno, OSH I suppose! I can't pinpoint exactly why that is, maybe to me a tabby pattern draws they eye away from and breaks up the long lines of the cat? IMO the selfs look more... otherworldly... I'm having trouble explaining it, but I think the shape of the cat lends itself better to solid colour.

My favourites are the blues and lilacs (naturally as I have one of each
) but I do also love the cinnamon oriental, it is unusual to see a solid cinnamon cat. And there is just something ghostly and ethereal about the lilacs and fawns
I would LOVE to see a great colored cinnamon on an OSH...I think that would be fantastic!
 
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sohni

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Epona, I understand what you mean. The chocolate brown smoke was simply stunning. Two judges said that they hated to admit it, but they marked him as their #1 cat the minute they took him out of the cage. He was also the nicest cat you could ever imagine; his paws doing the kneading thing as he was stretched out for display.

Another thing I loved about the Orientals were their eyes.. wow.. put my Mau's eyes to shame. The colour was amazing.

hee hee.. I sound like I am switching allegiances.. but Mau's are my first love. I so wish that there were more Maus there for me to drool over.
 

epona

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Originally Posted by Abymummy

I would LOVE to see a great colored cinnamon on an OSH...I think that would be fantastic!
There aren't too many about, but I like to see a nice reddish brown, a bit paler than a havana (what we call a chocolate OSH) but very much redder. Can I find a decent photo on google though? Pah!

Try this one it's a bit dark as he's in the shade and this is one of his daughters.
 

epona

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Great photos!

One of the things I love about the breed is that they resemble (to me at least!) miniature thoroughbred racehorses, especially when they are galloping around


We tend to go for a slightly heavier type than I see in photos from elsewhere, my Jacob is a lovely typey boy who would have been great for showing had he not broken the end of his sternum
but he's definitely a heavyweight boxer compared to the ballet dancer structure of the more modern type OSH which are catching on here too.

His eyes came out really badly in this photo, they are gorgeous green really! I don't have him in any great poses but you can see from his chest and shoulders that he is the heavier classic type cat (and I love the way his lilac coat shimmers in this photo, I hope you can see why I love the colour so much!):



And another one which shows his length really well!
 

epona

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Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

Oh wow - I'm in love with the silver classic OSH!
Most certainly an exceptional looking cat! It would be interesting to see a photo of that one as a more mature cat to see some good muscle development. Black/silver classics are my favorite OSH tabby (or maybe black/silver ticked, they are also really lovely) but I still think that a dilute solid with the same body type would look even sleeker - now if it were possible to breed an OSH with horizontal 'go faster' stripes rather than the usual tabby patterns that would really visually enhance the length!
 
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