To Burmese, or not to Burmese?

MistyDawn

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So a few months ago, I took in a little kitten from a litter that a local lady was re-homing. She was the last one left and I didn't get to see what the others looked like, but my little Jinx has beautiful and unique features to match her loving, gentle personality.

From what I understand (just from reading on here), it is rare to find a masked, pointed cat with green eyes, but here she is! She is pointed, mitted, and masked with green eyes, white whiskers, a white tummy, and a rich hot chocolate-colored, faintly striped coat that darkened a little bit as she got older. She also has small, rounded, black ears.

Here's a baby picture from the day I got her (~8wks)


And this is a more recent picture of her, looking annoyed at her younger (I know, he's huge) Maine Coon/Siamese mix adopted brother, Hex, who couldn't appear more pleased with himself.


So, my guess on breeds she could be related to is the Burmese, but her coat isn't quite short enough and, as far as I know, there are no mitted Burmese, right?

At the very least, what would be the full description of this set of markings? I know some of them, but I don't know the full terminology.
 
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MistyDawn

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Thank you so much, pinkdagger. They're both babies that I found someone giving away as kittens. Someone abandoned Jinx and her siblings in a park and another lady found them, raised them until they were old enough to ween from a bottle and found them homes. After Jinx became accustomed to my home, I began to worry that she was lonely when I can't be at home (I'm a student, so I have daily classes and all of that), so I got her a pal, Hex. A local breeder accidentally let one of her Maine Coon males get too close to a Siamese female and, well, you know the rest. I requested the most playful of the bunch, since Jinx was a little older than these kittens and needed someone who could keep up. I definitely got what I asked for, haha. He's a handful, but I love him.
 

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They're beautiful. She's a mitted colorpoint as far as I can see, and chocolate pointed too. Reminds me of a Snowshoe cat
 

stewball

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They're both gorgeous and I love Hex'a expression lying ontop of his sister.
 

lisahe

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I know this is an old thread but just had to say that your two kitties are very sweet and remind me of our snowshoe mix and lynx mix!
 
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MistyDawn

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Thank you guys so much. They're like children to me, so your kind words really mean a lot. :)

Haha, LisaHE, small world, huh? Our babies do look very similar. Yours are gorgeous too!
 

lisahe

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Thank you guys so much. They're like children to me, so your kind words really mean a lot.


Haha, LisaHE, small world, huh? Our babies do look very similar. Yours are gorgeous too!
Thanks, MistyDawn, they're great cats! (She says, though Ireland, the lynx mix, just jumped on the table and chowed down on some Parmesan cheese leftover from dinner! The funniest thing is that it's hard to get very mad at her because she's such a sweetie and looks so silly the way she bobs her head when she eats...)

It's funny: Hex and Ireland even have a similar facial expressions!
 
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MistyDawn

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Thanks, MistyDawn, they're great cats! (She says, though Ireland, the lynx mix, just jumped on the table and chowed down on some Parmesan cheese leftover from dinner! The funniest thing is that it's hard to get very mad at her because she's such a sweetie and looks so silly the way she bobs her head when she eats...)

It's funny: Hex and Ireland even have a similar facial expressions!
That sounds like Hex. He's my little mischief maker. Jinx is disabled/special needs, so she doesn't get into much.

If you have a larger version of the picture in your avatar, I'd love to see it.
 

StefanZ

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So a few months ago, I took in a little kitten from a litter that a local lady was re-homing. She was the last one left and I didn't get to see what the others looked like, but my little Jinx has beautiful and unique features to match her loving, gentle personality.

From what I understand (just from reading on here), it is rare to find a masked, pointed cat with green eyes, but here she is! She is pointed, mitted, and masked with green eyes, white whiskers, a white tummy, and a rich hot chocolate-colored, faintly striped coat that darkened a little bit as she got older. She also has small, rounded, black ears.

Here's a baby picture from the day I got her (~8wks)

And this is a more recent picture of her, looking annoyed at her younger (I know, he's huge) Maine Coon/Siamese mix adopted brother, Hex, who couldn't appear more pleased with himself.

So, my guess on breeds she could be related to is the Burmese, but her coat isn't quite short enough and, as far as I know, there are no mitted Burmese, right?

At the very least, what would be the full description of this set of markings? I know some of them, but I don't know the full terminology.
 I think you have here right what is my new favorite observation!

Jinx is apparently a true point, but also, apparently no typical point of the  siamese type.  And rather not so typical point of the burmanese type either.

The solution is a salomonic one.   She is both.   We know at least one of her point genes are of the burmanese type, but not impossibly both.

One point gene is of the siamese type, and the other point gene is of the burmanese type.

It explains nicely why she got so dark so early, and the eyes arent blue.   Burmanese dont have blue eye, so their mixes has usually either just weak bluish eyes, or even not blue at all.  (alhtough I had recently seen an example of probable point type mix, with nicely blue eyes).

With siamese type point, the coloring as such is coming essentially from the biological parents,  so I presume she is mitted because one of her parents, did carry the white spotted gene.

Also, her overall body shape is more of the siamese old type - type, than a burmanese.

BUT, if my analysis is wrong, she is double burmanese, but whom got the white spotted gene, and got mitted point...

After all, there is nobody pretending here to be a purebred burman...  Whatever she is, is she a mix, and thus, the solutions are a mix too...

A natures beauty!
 
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