What breed is my kitten?

Any non-pedigreed cat is a moggie. And, although your new kitten is as precious as they come, I would say that he is your typical, but no-less-special, domestic long-hair. Cat breeds, unlike dog breeds, are less discernable and so, therefore, instead of calling cats a mix of two or more breeds, they are referred to as domestic short-hair or long-hair. And, from there they can be identified further by fur color and pattern. Sometimes kitties can appear to be a mix of specific breeds, such as a persian, exotic, siamese, or oriental. But, more than likely, they are their own unique breed -- a breed I like to call the cute breed .

Your kitten is absolutely adorable. He looks to be a red and white tabby (I can't tell his coat pattern in the pics) and is just too cute for words. Even though he may not be a particular breed, he is a special boy and I'd love to learn more about him. What's his name? Age? And, you know, we'll definitely need to see more photos of the cutie-patootie. Oh, and welcome to TCS! I hope you find this to be as wonderful a place as I have. See you 'round!

He's adorable!

Most likely he has no pure breed in him. Cats aren't like dogs, in that most dogs have some identifiable breed in them----purebred cats make up less than 3% of the cat population, almost all cats are just plain CATS. Which is how I like them. He would be referrred to as a red tabby domestic longhair .

He's a red tabby domestic longhair - no particular breed. What may appear to be "white" is cream and typical of a red with shading.

He's darn cute tho

He's the same breed all of my cats are...the cutie breed! Congrats on your new kitty!

i agree he is adorable

Welcome to the Forums!

Like the others said, he is domestic long hair.

If you really insists on comparing his looks to some breed, so perhaps somewhat Maine Coon alike (MCO).


IF you are interested in showing him, participate in cat shows / exhibitions, so you perhaps know almost all cat shows, does also have a class for domestic cats / pet cats?

The procedure and titles are almost as same as for the pure breed cats with all papers....
Although there is of course no breed standard, so they judge is going after the overall appearance, the psyche, and so on.... - So shy cats wont win here...

Another difference is, grown domestic cats must be neutered. There is no class for adult fertile moggies...

But as said, the titles sound almost the same, etc etc = lots of fun!


Good luck!

An adorable DLH, as the others have said.

I'm no expert on cat breeds, but I think he's going to be a big boy, look at the size of his feet! He doesn't have any extra toes does he?

Definitely the 'adorable' breed (domestic longhair.)

I beg to differ but the kitten really doesn't even look like a Maine Coon - just cause it has long hair doesn't make it a MC. The face is far too "pointed" to even be a pet quality MC.

In this case, I would not even suggest MC as a breed in the background.

gosh, those were really cute. sorry i dunnoe what breed was that but one thing is for sure, they are cute.

do you also love dogs?
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Sadly, shelters often feel obliged to list animals as "part-Xbreed" in order to home them. Anything semi-longhaired is then sold as part MC or Persian or Newf or Shih Tzu.

So it's refreshing to see so many people stand up and proudly announce their own kitties are the Cutie Breed.


That said, genetics testing can now determine quite a bit about a pet's origins, if one wants to spend the time and money ...



eta: @pinetreee, he's clearly in the Total Cutie! class of the Cute Breed.

Being a long time person that shows and knows the breeds, I tend to "call them like they are" and not say your cat is or looks like a breed.

And cats really are not as different as dogs with genetics, so IMO it would be more unreliable to determine a "breed" in cats, then you can in dogs.

I understand why a shelter would do this to get cats a home, but I don't agree with the practice.

Ah! very interesting. I was thinking of Leslie Lyons' work at UC Davis. Looking it up again now, I see how right you are ...
http://www.ucdavis.edu/spotlight/0208/cats.html


I'd think that the practice of faux-labeling shelter cats further devalues moggies. My past cats were retired show cats, and I found it annoying to hear "oh my neighbour has a ____ too!" then in the next breath be told that breeding is evil etc. Which way do they want it?

That is just stupid IMO. If I wouldn't be involved with pedigreed cats, I would definitely get a basic DSH/DLH rather than *mix of this and that*-breed. To me all those 'partly purebreds' are no accidents.. Things may be different in other parts of the world, but over here most of those 'this x that' litters are made intentionally to get some money out of them and it pisses me off big time. Sorry about the rant.

But I totally agree that the kitty in the pics is a very cute domestic longhair. (And doesn't remind me of any specific breed).

While it's not possible to tell any given cat's breed(s) genetically like for dogs, what Dr Lyons et al HAVE found is that cats from the Thai-Malay peninsula are genetically quite different from the rest of the cats in the world. This of course is the origin of the Siamese, Burmese, Tonkinese, Korat and Khao Manee. Some of us always suspected those meezers were different but now there is scientific data backing it. It's thought that due to the peninsula and the mountains in the north, the cats developed in isolation for a long long time. And also they recently have discovered that cats from Thailand show more genetic diversity by far than any other cats they have studied.
(I think its mostly those cats that are the Asian breeds referred to in that article.)

So although it's not possible to take any given cat and get a breed profile from DNA, I think it could be possible to tell the difference between, say, a genuine Siamese and a pointed domestic shorthair with almost all Western moggie ancestors and only a tiny bit of Siamese in them from many generations ago (from whom they got the pointed pattern)
Or I wonder if it would be at least possible to identify cats with genes of the 16 "natural breeds" mentioned in that article....

It is bizarre the schizo attitude some people have toward breeds and breeders. If they hate the people preserving the breeds why do they so much want to believe their cat is a breed cat?

And shelters wrongly label so many cats as some breed (sometimes in a way that is totally ludicrous like I have seen regular brown Mc Tabbies called "Singapuras" !!! ) and it helps them get adopted so i can understand it -- but what is annoying is that they then use these wrong identifications to claim that so many "purebred" cats are in shelters!
i think in some cases people just do not understand the wonderful variety of moggies.

Agree to mis-lable the cats as "breeds" makes it seem that the reputable breeders are the cause of all the purebreds in shelters. I would guess that less then 5% of the cats in shelters are true purebred cats.

Good point.

And I've seen so many fake Ocicats or Oci mixes on Petfinder - many of them normal mackerel or broken mackerel domestics and half of them with white on the coats - you will never have white on an Ocicat (other then the white chin in which many Aby's have).

And Aby's shouldn't even have truly white chins, in the worst case just a little lighter colored like all other tabbies.

The only exception would be very old cats who've lost pigment in their coats, I've even met this 20 years old Somali once who had lost the pigment on the front of her legs !

The little red guy is just adorable. He looks so soft and sweet!